Egypt on Anur Khufos
by Machiner6
Summary: When Ben Tennyson and company crash-land in Egypt, they find themselves entangled in an interplanetary plot more dangerous than anything they've encountered before. The planet Anur Khufos is in peril from a mysterious plague, and it's up to Ben, his family, and a gang of powerful alien mummies to save both worlds before it's too late!
1. Welcome to Giza

Giza, Egypt. Late afternoon, sometime during the Tennysons' summer vacation...

In the urban heart of Giza, a man named Elias Amsude strolled through the crowded streets, en route to the desert. Having worked as a journalist for a number of years, saving an impressive amount of money from his job and several smaller ones before, today he was leaving with his paycheck, feeling his job would not be necessary much longer, but not before stopping at the market on the way out.

As such, Elias entered the curio store to meet his good friend Ahmed.

They greeted each other in native Arabic, "Elias! Welcome, how're things going on this hot day?"

"I just finished work, but other than that, not much else. What do you have in stock today?"

"I'm glad you asked, friend," Ahmed smiled as he began to point towards the glass display case below him. "I just received a shipment of antique books from an old Israeli mosque, some gold ornaments from Ethiopia, and two papyrus scrolls from this area!"

Elias found himself surprised at such an unusual stock, and he asked, "My my, how did you get such precious items?"

"Most of them were previously on display in the Cairo museum, but they're rather full right now and they sold me their excess. I have documents to prove it."

"Ah, I see."

"Well, take your time to find what you like, my friend," Ahmed chuckled, "Business is rather slow today, anyway."

As Elias was browsing, he casually remarked, "You know, there's something that...just speaks to me about Ancient Egypt. It's simply fascinated me for...I don't know how long. Journalism is fine for what it pays, but modern culture is not the same."

"I agree," the merchant sighed. Then he remembered an interesting bit of trivia, and changed topics, "Oh! Speaking of news, have you heard the name 'Ben Ten' anywhere recently?"

Elias almost bumped his head against the counter whilst rising back upright, and answered, "No, I haven't. Who's that?"

"I hear he is a superhero from America, with the power to change into aliens or monsters at will, or some such."

Elias almost jumped, for the word 'aliens' was a serious topic to him. Then he composed himself and stated, "Well, if I was writing for the global news instead of local events, I might have known about this sooner. Anyway, what do you know about the scrolls?"

Ahmed unlocked the display case to remove the two delicate documents, examined them closely, then set them gingerly on the counter. He explained, "These were both excavated from the tomb of a scribe from around...what was it...1300BC? Nobody found them until recently, and believe it or not, they haven't even been decoded yet!"

Sensing an opportunity, Elias asked, "How much are you selling them for?"

Ahmed smiled and replied, "Normally they would be worth 30,000 pounds, but for you, I can offer 20,000."

As luck would have it, Elias had brought his savings of 21,000 pounds for just this situation, and swiftly placed exactly Ahmed's price on the counter, much to his surprise.

"Well...thank you, my friend!" Ahmed nodded in astonishment while handing over the scrolls in a paper bag. "You'll report these in the paper, won't you?"

"Of course I will. But I have business to attend to this weekend...elsewhere." Elias strolled towards the door, looked back and finished, "Have a nice day!"

Elias climbed onto his motorcycle and drove to the edge of the city as casually as he could while riding along the Al Haram highway towards the pyramid area of Giza. He kept his route long and distant to not draw the public's eye, and as the desert area approached, he activated a device attached to the dashboard that effectively cloaked him and the bike. On his right arm, just below his digital watch, Elias then turned on a homing device that flashed more frequently as he approached the pyramid of Khafre. But he was not interested in it, but instead the smaller, disused satellite pyramid near it. Khafre's pyramid was guarded, so the cloaking device helped him remained unseen.

Elias tapped a remote-control switch on his gauntlet, and drove the bike down a concealed stone ramp at the base of the pyramid, seamlessly closing behind him as he parked it. Then, using an amulet he always wore about his neck, Elias opened a stone door no human had known to exist.

He stepped into the open chamber, breathed for a moment, then removed not only his clothes, but also a cleverly realistic mask, shedding what turned out to be a disguise for a Thep Khufan.

In actuality, this being was a scribe named Elastamun, having been sent to Earth to conduct research on humans. His human disguise had helped keep this secret up to now, and currently Elastamun had been hoping his mission was at an end, for he had been here for over 15 years and was hoping for some form of reward or acknowledgement that the data he'd accumulated would be of some significance to his master on Anur Khufos.

As it was, Elastamun set down his gauntlet and necklace in front of a console he'd set up adjacent to an altar dedicated to the sun god Ra. With all the time spent here on Earth, Elastamun wished the Egyptian polytheism was not entirely dead, as he'd suggested to Ahmed.

His jewelry softly glowed, having been set to upload today's video and sound recordings. While that happened, Elastamun turned to a worktable he'd set up against another wall, and using an LED light purchased months prior, proceeded to examine the two delicate papyrus scrolls.

The alien scribe's intimate knowledge of hieroglyphs helped him translate these documents in a flash, copying the text to a simple notepad as he scanned the ancient text.

While Elastamun knew most of ancient Egyptian history backwards and forwards, including its mythology, these texts stood out as peculiar, most significantly that it had no cartouche to designate its writer. Apparently the unnamed scribe had claimed to have seen mummies that walked, digging up strange rocks in the dunes and ensnaring anyone who came close. One almost attacked him as he was writing. These two documents sounded more like a journal than a public record, and by the standards of the people then, it made sense why these documents were unknown. But for Elastamun, this ancient person's story was not that far from the truth.

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	2. Secret of the Tomb

Then Elastamun stood up and strode toward his sarcophagus for a hard day's rest, stopping for a moment to internally smirk over the tradition Egyptians always did with their dead. They didn't just preserve their dead bodies, but they filled their tombs with supplies in the hopes that everything would copy over to their 'afterlife'. A pleasing thought to be sure, but Elastamun figured it rather dangerous to stockpile that many valuable items for one person, hence the countless robberies and 'curses' over the centuries.

As Elastamun prepared to open his coffin, the whole chamber suddenly glowed with a purple light, emanating from the viewer by the altar. He rushed towards the device and pressed a button to confirm contact, and the crystal viewer flared to life, showing the face of another Thep Khufan, this one wearing purple ceremonial robes and bearing a falcon-shaped golden headdress. He began, speaking in native Thep Khufan language, "Greetings, my pupil. Forgive this sudden interruption, but I bear grim tidings that you must know immediately."

Elastamun had spoken to this being many times before over the years, but rarely did his master call him first, so the scribe seized the opportunity and asked, "What news do you bring at such an early hour, Valensen?"

The purple-robed mummy hesitated, then explained, "I am sorry, I have tasked you to study humans, yes, but never explained why."

"What? I have hoped for some use to come of the data I gathered for you, but surely..."

"We have indeed learned much, but that is exactly why I must speak to you now. It has been years since you were last here on Anur Khufos, and while Zs'Skayr and his Ectonurite cult have released his iron grip over the last few human decades, another source of darkness plagues our own people from within. Behold," And Valensen switched the video feed to show recordings of masks writhing on the ground, their glowing eyes struggling to open as if in pain, while he continued over the audio link, "Our species is dying, from what I deduce is some form of disease. We have no knowledge of its cause, let alone a cure. But there is more to this situation, and as your instructor and the pharaoh's personal adviser, I request that you return to Anur Khufos at once to see for yourself."

"By the will of Ra, I accept."

Remembering a code he was instructed to memorize in the event of a situation such as this, Elastamun opened a panel below the console and pushed a set of buttons marked with Thep Khufan numbers. Then the two columns flanking the altar glowed with energy generated from a set of pylons deployed from them; In mere seconds, a portal formed before the altar. Making sure that the chamber was secured from intruders, Elastamun remotely locked the single stone door leading from the room, and stepped through the portal.

Elastamun's trip across the galaxy ended in a stone chamber he barely remembered, just vaguely recalling seeing it before going to Earth. Things seemed remarkably different now, and Valensen would likely show him just how much.

The vizier began by pointing to the murals on the walls, "Do you see this, Elastamun? This is the pharaoh's 'remedy' to the problem that ills our people. Because..." Pausing, as if reluctant to speak further, he finished in a soft voice, "The data you gathered on humans – how their organic bodies function and other such things, all of it has been perverted by the pharaoh to create this remedy. That is why I came to warn you."

Elastamun stared at these new, unfamiliar hieroglyphs, more intricate than human Egyptian language. Staring at it for several minutes, it clicked when the words and pictures came together, and he gasped, "You mean...humans are being used as hosts for our species? Why?"

His answer came abruptly when footsteps echoed up a stairway near the end of the room.

"Hide!" Valensen hissed.

Elastamun flattened himself as thin as possible behind the communicator deck, whilst Valensen resumed his formal post as vizier.

Two Thep Khufans dressed in long black robes brought in what looked like an Egyptian man on a simple gurney, shaved bald and lacking clothes. They hoisted the man from it to a table made of stone blocks, while a third brought out a mask from a side room. Any Thep Khufan knew that masks like this were normally infants of their species, being the one place that housed any vital organs, but this one seemed different. Only its faceplate was solid, the rest was missing. This mask was just that, like the ones mummies would have been entombed with to protect them in the afterlife.

Elastamun listened as his superior talked to the robed mummies.

One of them reported, "The Pharaoh sends word that the new pyramid should be completed within three months. This last host will complete our new group of six-hundred-and-fifty citizens."

Valensen crossed his arms and asked, "Please tell the pharaoh that I wish him to look for a cure to this sickness, rather than steal innocent beings for our own purposes."

The second robed being argued, "You would do wise to hold your tongue, Valensen, for Pharaoh Rehk'Set is here to oversee this final procedure. Anything you wish to say to us, you can say to him yourself."

And with that, another mummy descended the staircase, this one dressed in gold ceremonial attire, dark red robes, and sporting a red and blue striped headdress often seen worn by human pharaohs.

"Whosoever mentions my name is either in need of my presence, or is my enemy," He declared in a deep voice.

Valensen readjusted his attitude and bowed, "O Wise one, how goes your kingdom? I have been busy of late so I have not had time to see it until recently."

Rehk'Set nodded, having no mouth to smile with, "With efficiency, my vizier. My people are as obedient and respecting as ever, they do not complain, and through me, the will of the gods keeps these people in line. I have come to oversee the final step in our latest batch. You may observe, if you wish."

"I would be honored, great pharaoh."

With that, the vizier and his ruler approached the stone table while the three assistants prepared the body. One held the mask over the unconscious man's head, ready to lower it into place at a signal from the pharaoh. The third unveiled an amulet inset with a very large chunk of blue corrodium, bathing everyone in the area with its light of low-level radiation. Valensen had heard of this mineral being refined for other purposes than just simple mutations, but never knew their exact use. Then the third mummy used his free hand to pick up a simple scalpel and, to the disgust of Elastamun, cut out a piece of skin from the man's flesh and wove the amulet into the cavity, gingerly stitching the wound shut with the speed of a sewing machine. Elastamun speculated that, in some symbolic sense, the man had just been given a new heart.

Then, observing the glowing amulet and gleaming Thep Khufan mask, the pharaoh picked up a scroll given by the others, unrolled it and chanted in a language Elastamun didn't know. If he had skin, the scribe would have had goosebumps as he watched the Khufan mask erratically sprout its first bandages, using them to latch itself to the man's face like a facehugger. As the tentacles spread about the human's body, he could sense it being transformed, bones crunching, flesh warping, blood leaking in places; The corrodium's light began to fill every gap between his new bandages. Whatever this ritual was, it wasn't just mummifying the human but outright changing him into a true Thep Khufan. Elastamun never thought his species was capable of this kind of power, and this scared him more than anything he'd ever seen before. Had all his research really come to this?

"By the wisdom of Thoth, your remedy will surely save our people from death!" Valensen cheered for the pharaoh.

Pharaoh Rehk'Set turned to the mummy on the table and softly called, "Arise, my new slave. Wake and see your new lord." Elastamun noticed his red eyes suddenly glowing brighter, and that glow copied itself to the eyes of the new being, replacing its original blue, like the minions of the Master Control Program.

As commanded, the new Thep Khufan sat up from the table, speaking slowly, rigidly, as if he was an old sci-fi robot reading off its programmed instructions, "I obey your every commands, master."

"Come, then. I have work for you, and your brethren await on the surface."

Elastamun had all but forgotten about the dreaded surface world of Anur Khufos, but knew enough that the climate up there was so horrid no one lived there, not to mention the huge deposits of corrodium creating radiation so intense a human would have registered it on par with the inside a nuclear reactor.

Questions piled up in his head. Why was the pharaoh having slaves create pyramids up there? Why kidnap humans to transform them into more of his species? Was this connected to that sickness killing the existing Thep Khufans?

He watched the pharaoh and his minions ascend the stairs to the surface, leaving Valensen alone again.

The bird-headed adviser turned towards the shadowed alcove and called, "It is safe to come out now."

With that, Elastamun rose to his feet and fastened his bandages back into his familiar three-dimensional form. Approaching, he felt a sting of rage mounting within him, but decided to save it for the so-called "pharaoh". Instead, he asked his master, "How...how long have you known?"

Valensen hesitated, then recalled, "It started five years after you went Earthside. I was ordered to tell no one, and Rehk'Set decided that you were better off on Earth, so that you would be...out of his way and not know of the true events at hand. But as the years wore on, I steadily realized this had to end, yet for a time I did not know how we could stand a chance against the pharaoh's reign. A resistance has been built, but it is outnumbered fifty to one by his forces."

Elastamun argued, puzzled, "This does not make sense. Only Zs'Skayr could have such cruel methods. They enslaved us, why would one of our own enslave humans?"

"Good question. There are a number of strange events I have noticed over the years that have me asking questions of my own: Zs'Skayr vanishes, then pharaoh Rho'tep dies to be replaced by Rehk'Set, and...hmm,"

"What?"

"Yes, I listened to your latest recordings. Your friend mentioned the name 'Ben ten', did he not?" Valensen asked as he activated the comm deck and started winding through various video clips.

"Yes, he did, but what significance does that make? I have never heard the name until then."

Valensen looked back toward his student with confusion for a moment, then understood why, and answered, "The significance lies not in the name, nor the person in question, but the means of his powers. And that means has been a legend across the galaxy: A device called the 'Omnitrix'."

Elastamun tried to remember that term as well, but not a human he remembered mentioned it. "Forgive me, Valensen. I have been isolated for so long."

Valensen tapped some buttons on the comm deck, and the image swirled into a video of a rotating gauntlet with a green luminescent faceplate in its top. He explained, "This is the device. From what we know, it allows the wearer to temporarily transform into another creature and gain their abilities." He tapped more switches, bringing up videos of various beings and their starships, "It is legendary because many evil beings wish to exploit it for violence, destruction, and war. Especially the tyrant Vilgax," A cthulu-esque alien wearing battle armor flared up as he said this.

"So what does this...tool have to do with us?"

"This...method you saw, the means of turning a human being into our species by the magical abilities we know combined with modified corrodium, it reminded me of the Omnitrix. I have theorized that somehow, Rehk'Set may have copied its methods to do this. Such a thing is not far-fetched - I once heard that Zs'Skayr knew of it too when a probe crashed on his planet." he paused, carefully picking his words, " But if my theory about the pharaoh's methods is so, we need to find this 'Ben 10' and enlist his aid to stop Rehk'Set before he assimilates more humans, for Ben is a human himself. Therefore, I must ask you to return to Earth and find him as quickly as possible. From your friend's description, he must be across the planet, so use whatever means necessary to reach him."

Elastamun waited, thinking this new objective over, then asked, "What if he reacts poorly to our people here? He may not have even been off-world before."

Valensen chuckled and almost seized this opportunity in an instant, "The resistance have formed a belief that Ben is a god because of the Omnitrix's power. 'The being of a thousand beings', they call him. A warrior sent by Ra to save us. I do not believe this legend, but I feel it may make the human feel welcome here in at least a few ways."

Elastamun noticed a number of scarabs on the wall holding that same faceplate over their carapaces, behind the open wings, while the sun disk was still held out in front by its claws. "Perhaps you are right, my master. If anything can help us, a power like that may be a great force to be reckoned with." He prepared himself, then asked, "Open the gate, I am ready and will move with swiftness to find this boy. Whatever it takes, if he is our only hope, I will do my best to enlist his aid."

Valensen entered another hieroglyph code and activated his portal, filling the room with that violet light again, then he warned his scribe, "Before you leave, a word of caution: The pharaoh has been growing suspicious of my actions of late, so I fear I may not be able to aid you directly much longer. If I am not here by the time you return, seek Ja'Kaal, the resistance leader," He reached into his robe and handed Elastamun a circular charm with a blue and gold depiction of a falcon's head on its face. "This amulet will help you find him and his warriors."

"I will, master."

"Good luck, Elastamun. By the will of Ra and the might of Horus, I wish you the utmost of luck in your quest."

Elastamun bowed, bid him goodbye, and stepped through the portal once again.

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	3. Reign of Darkness

p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"Once on the other side, Elastamun made a beeline for his bike, locked his lair tight, and opened the entry ramp, sand spilling down into the chamber as it lowered. Specially designed filter grates and fans sucked that sand out of the chamber, keeping it clean of dust./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"When Elastamun drove up the ramp out of the chamber, however, a sight more terrifying than the transformation he saw on Anur Khufos chilled him to the bone. He sat still, the bike's vibration letting him know he was still in reality. Elastamun was fixed on the sky, for something up there feverishly drew his attention./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"For a moment, the sky was its typical blue, but far away, overhead, he saw a bright beam of purple light that turned into a wave, a wave of light swirling with sinister, undulating patterns. As it swept across the sky, a shadow followed along the ground in its wake. Everywhere around him, darkness was falling. Blocked out because of this evil blanket of light./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"He could remember one of the old Egyptian legends: One that said whenever the sun was blocked out, Ra's face would be hidden, and if that happened, the giant red serpent of chaos, Apophis, would rise from the underworld and devour the world of humanity, crushing order – Ma'at – in effect./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"Elastamun put the bike back into gear and drove on, slowly, watching as the purple wave swept the sky. Another parallel hit him – one from a movie he once rented in town. In it, humans had developed a way to permanently cover the sky in darkness, by spraying dark thunderclouds from aircrafts so that the enemy robots couldn't recharge from sunlight. That was the worst mistake humans ever made./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"As he approached the main highway into town his shock factor deepend, for the people he passed were running from that phenomenon overhead, but in their frenzy, Elastamun could see that those people were transforming. Mutating was the better word, for he sighted the unmistakable sight of deformed, blackened skin with a faint purple glow to it. One by one, in mere seconds, an entire crowd of people had turned into dark, skinny monsters, their limbs deformed into shiv-like stumps, drooling and gibbering in a combination of fear and insanity./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"He knew what was happening instantly. That mass covering the sky was corrodium. Somehow, through some method he didn't know, someone had found a way to project this mineral onto Earth on a global scale to block out the sun. Then as he made it to the highway and revved the bike harder, the scribe knew only one species that would want to do this: Ectonurites. And it was obvious immediately that no one else but Zs'Skayr would have had the power, the craftiness to accomplish such an insane task./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"But then another feeling sunk in: Fear. What if Ben had been caught in the open and mutated as well? Then another concern entered his mind, but he simply focused on driving back into town, hoping he was wrong./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"The highway was jammed with cars on the left side, probably in a futile attempt to get out of the city. There were others on this side, but not as many. Elastamun reved the motor and took off as fast as he could, suspecting that this global mutation would have made speed limit violations pointless at this time./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"Within 20 minutes, he made it to the market district, the cloak of radioactive blackness still looming. Then frantically stopping the motorcycle, Elastamun jumped off the bike and barged into the curio shop, having forgotten his human disguise in the process. What the scribe saw next would have left a human shedding tears, for inside, sprawled out on the floor behind the counter, was Ahmed, just as deformed and gibbering as the rest./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"At that moment, all that vigor he'd had for his mission was lost. He knew very well that if this Ben was on Earth, he'd be as good as dead unless someone got rid of this cloak of nightmares. And if he wasn't, where was he? Did some friendly alien take him to another planet like he was supposed to? Did astronauts take the boy up to one of their space stations? Conflicted, scared, and unsure of what to do next, the Thep Khufan scribe picked a mahogany Arghul flute off one of the shelves, sat on the floor, and played, hoping it would calm the mood./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"He wasn't sure if Ahmed would welcome the sound in his altered state, but Elastamun didn't care. He wanted to be by his best friend's side, the one true person he'd grown to like for 15 years of isolation on a planet where aliens were, as far as he knew, no more than stories, just like the Egyptian myths he wished were reality. The world he was sent to document, at least in this country, only consisted of a banal mass of mediocre technological uniformity, plagued by psychopaths from the Middle East trying to convey their feelings through guns and skewed politics, destroying monuments that didn't fit their beliefs./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"He had to use local transportation to get around, hence the motorbike, but couldn't go to any neighboring countries without a passport, and his disguise would be blown if he tried to go through security, especially with the risk of his home being eventually found out if he left, despite the security systems he'd added./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"With Ahmed, the scribe could leave that world behind and look at what he thought was humanity's golden ages; the Greeks, Mayans, Incans, even the Islam empire, all through these relics meticulously saved from those days. Sometimes Elastamun wished he could find a time machine and document humanity in those glorious ages of the past, rather than the present. Or perhaps, if he didn't have to constantly disguise himself, he'd change jobs to become an archeologist and help his friend collect these priceless treasures around the world. But even that, he knew, was just another fantasy./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"-/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"The pendulum clock on the wall read 7:32 PM. Who knew how much time was left for the rest of humanity on the other side of the globe? When night fell here, the next day on the other side would fall victim to the corrodium curtain. And what would be left then?/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"Elastamun stopped playing when he had a thought. He remembered a set of advanced binoculars kept on his person at all times for his old mission. Finding them in a pocket on his robe, the scribe paced to the door, held the lenses up to his eyes, and tried to look through the barrier overhead. Toggling through a number of wavelength modes to see past the corrodium, ultraviolet mode did it, providing a clear view of space. As it happened, just barely visible, thousands of miles away he could see a space station, and right away he could tell that the corrodium was being generated from it, somehow via satellite equipment. Zs'Skayr must be up there somewhere, probably laughing at his scheme's fruition./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"All of a sudden, as he watched, the transmitter dish exploded as if something had hit it. Simultaneously, the corrodium laser stopped, and with it, the cloak of darkness. Twilight returned as he lowered the binoculars, and people in the streets turned back to their natural state. As Elastamun turned around, he noticed Ahmed standing up behind his counter as well. But fearful that his friend would not recognize him without the disguise, Elastamun instead remounted his bike and sped off again, reminding himself to look for a telephone and call him later./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"It was nightfall when he reached the pyramids, and as he closed in on the area, something plummeted from the sky, maybe debris from the station impact. As he drove closer, it collided with the ground, and a red flash of light gave Elastamun its location./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"The impact had left a large crater in the sand between several small pyramids some miles from the large ones, and his home. He braked a few feet away and looked through his binoculars again, this time in night vision. Three humans were down there. An elderly man, a girl with red hair, and a boy with an elaborate watch on his right arm. Zooming in closer, Elastamun knew this was his target, for he had the Omnitrix. Lowering the binoculars, the scribe could see the poetic imagery of this scene: They'd fallen from orbit after probably destroying that transmitter themselves, like how Ra came from the heavens./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"Elastamun turned on his cloaking device again, driving slowly towards the group of humans, uncertain as to these peoples' behaviors. If this Ben, probably the boy, had the Omnitrix, then the others with him must at least be somewhat familiar with aliens. Then he realized he forgot something critical to cross-species diplomacy: A universal translator! He'd almost never used it, having instead wished to learn human languages, but in this country, judging by their American-looking ethnicity, English was one language Elastamun had not practiced./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; background: white; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 15.45pt 0in 15.45pt 0in;"span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #2a2a2a;"Entering his lair quickly to grab a small metal square, activate it, and clamp it to the back of his head, the scribe returned to hear Ben's voice asking, "Uh, guys, where are we?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" /p 


	4. First Contact

Standing 5 feet from the crater with the cloaking device active on his shoulder, Elas weighed his next actions carefully. He was about to meet three humans face to face, without his disguise; humans that probably thought this whole area was abandoned right now. No one had known about his true identity as a Thep Khufan, and the protocol of his original research mission specifically said to stay undercover when around humans.

But this time was different. Humanity had just narrowly dodged the apocalypse, and no one besides those three was around for a hundred miles or so. Anything could happen out here. Then again, he needed this person because he had the Omnitrix. Whatever power that device had, his master had made it seem like Ben had an entire army at his disposal, which in a sense was true. The Thep Khufans were dying, the resistance was outnumbered, and his people needed reinforcements now. Even so, he had to remember that just because this human had it didn't mean he'd just drop everything and help this scribe. These people were sensitive to things they didn't know, that much Elastamun knew from his research.

Then the scribe mentally thought, "Wreck it," and de-cloaked. He shouted, "Hello?" his translator conveying clear English in his voice, "Hello? Is anyone there?"

The humans stirred in confusion, unsure as to where that noise came from. Realizing that he was too far away, Elas warily stepped closer to the crater.

The girl heard his footsteps first and screamed, "Look out!"

This was not what the scribe wanted to hear.

Ben asked in a frustrated tone, "Another mummy?! I thought we were done with this!"

Thinking fast, Elas held his hands up and called, "Wait, I mean no harm!"

Hearing this, the elderly man asked, "Did that thing just...speak?"

This caught the attention of the children; The scribe noticed Ben's hand hovering over the Omnitrix's initiation switch.

Trying again, Elastamun beckoned, "Yes, I speak your language. Whatever happened up there with the space station, I took no part in any of it, for I am but a humble scribe."

"A scribe?" The girl asked, confused.

Elastamun offered helping the humans out of that hole, but they managed to do by it themselves anyway. Now face to face with him, they looked his body over carefully. He was wearing his dark red cloak to protect from sand, and the blue glow from his bandages and eyes contrasted with the purple they were used to from the other one, on top of his elaborately decorated mask, a mark of higher Thep Khufan status.

"You certainly look a lot fancier than the last mummy we fought," Ben commented.

Elas wanted to laugh, but simply commented with a hint of pride, "Ah, please. A mummy is what a human is made into when prepared for the afterlife. Whatever you dealt with must have been another member of my species: A Thep Khufan."

They were all surprised at how educated this alien sounded, prompting the old man to ask, "How do you know Egyptian culture?"

"And how can you talk? The thing we fought off couldn't do that," the girl added.

"Maybe because it was probably speaking in our native language. I am using a translation device to speak yours."

"Right..." the girl rolled her eyes.

Elastamun felt a mixture of curiosity and concern. If he lost their trust, Ben would probably slaughter him with one of his alien forms. That couldn't happen. He also couldn't shake the fact that this kind of 'first contact' had never been done before as Elias. But that guise was gone now.

He changed subjects and asked, "Forgive my manners, might I ask who you are?"

The children hesitated, thinking this over. This mummy wasn't attacking, but acting like an ambassador to some group, though they weren't sure if the rest of these 'thep khufans' were as peaceful as he was. Eventually, curiosity got the better of them, and they introduced themselves as Ben, Gwen, and Max Tennyson. Then the scribe gave his name and why he knew so much about this country's history. They also filled him in on what happened up on the station, impressing the scribe more than anything else.

Finally, he jumped straight to the point, "Listen, what you call 'Ghostfreak' may have been defeated, but something else has afflicted my world and we need your help to save it."

This caught the Tennysons off guard again, prompting Grandpa Max to inquire, "What are you saying? Your planet's under attack or something?"

"I will have to show you," Elastamun stated before asking the humans to follow him. Feeling that they were practically in the middle of nowhere for now, they complied.

When they reached the satellite pyramid of Khafre's, the scribe tapped the remote on his gauntlet to lower the entry ramp. All three humans were stunned at this kind of technology, and he wasn't surprised, considering no one had seen this before. Then he led them down the ramp and into his inner sanctum below the pyramid.

"This is so strange, no one's found anything below this pyramid for thousands of years," Max commented.

"When you're on Earth for fifteen years and need a place to live, I settled on something fitting. The large ones were more famous than this one, so I picked this as an out-of-the-way location," Elastamun told him as he walked them into the room.

Inside, the Tennysons marveled at his richly appointed living space, from the sarcophagus he slept in, to the Ra altar, comm deck, and table at the back, two shelves filled with books and scrolls, and strangely, a human-made couch and flat-screen television, complete with a video player. Gwen was enthralled by the elaborately carved murals and hieroglyphic bands on every wall.

"For someone isolated here for a long time, you sure know how to decorate a place," she commented.

"Where'd you get that TV from? Or that motorcycle out there?" Ben asked with curiosity.

"Would you believe me if I said I worked as a journalist here, and bought those items with the money I incurred?" Elas asked, having expected to say this, "I had to wear a disguise so people would not notice what I was."

"Not surprising," Grandpa Max nodded. Then he noticed him working at the comm deck, and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Look here, I need to show you this," the scribe answered.

The Tennysons gathered in front of the alien device, and by pressing a few buttons, he played back what his master had told him earlier, while checking that his gauntlets and necklace were still on. They stared intently at the footage of withering infant Khufans as the vizier talked, along with clips of the evil pharaoh.

Finally, Gwen declared, "Let me get this straight: Something's killing your...um, species, and you want us to save them?"

"Maybe he wants ME to save them!" Ben interrupted, eager to show off his hero capabilities.

"Exactly that, young girl," Elastamun confirmed while reaching for the keypad. "I wish we had more time to explain, but this situation has grown gravely serious, so we must hurry."

Entering the code again, the portal on the altar sparked to life again, and he beckoned, "Come, time is short. There are people who wish to speak to you."

"Wait, are you serious? You want us to come to your planet?!" Ben gasped, realizing that this mummy wasn't exaggerating.

But the scribe had already gone through, waving his hand in a beckoning gesture as he crossed the threshold.

"I don't think we have a choice," Grandpa Max stated.

Gwen checked before moving forward, "Do you still have those hazmat suits?"

"Same ones we used on the station, sure." He checked his pockets for the 3 small discs that contained those suits, and found them.

"Well, let's go then," Ben said as he walked towards the portal.

When the group arrived on the other side in the embalming room, they were surprised that the design of this place wasn't far off from real Egyptian architecture. It almost looked like a real chamber where a mummy would've been constructed, complete with the designs on the walls.

Ben took an interest in the numerous scarabs holding the Omnitrix symbol on one end. It being in religious depictions intrigued him.

Elastamun was concerned that his master was not here. Then he remembered the falcon amulet still on his person. Unsure of what he meant about how it would guide him to Ja'Kaal, he brushed the center of it, and suddenly it glowed with a pulsing blue light. He guessed it worked like his own homing device, which made Valensen's words accurate.

He ordered, "Follow me up these stairs, the pharaoh's guards could be here any minute!"

"Wait, pharaoh? Guards? What's going on here?" Gwen stammered as she tried to keep up with her cousin and grandfather.

The four of them entered through the floor of an enormous temple chamber. On all four sides, massive stone columns lined the walls. In the center was a giant standing statue of Ra, a humanoid with the head of a falcon, and a disk representing the sun balanced on his head. However, unlike what humans showed on Earth, Ra's body here was depicted in the somewhat hunch-backed form of a Thep Khufan. The material it was made of was too smooth to be stone, almost like some type of metal. The falcon head was certainly golden. Stelae bearing murals and lines of hieroglyphic Khufan language adorned the walkway leading to the statue, with obelisks behind them marking the path. This temple had to be one of the most advanced pieces of alien construction the Tennysons had ever seen, and it all coincided with an Earth culture. Gwen and Max were curious as to what this could mean.

Meanwhile, Elastamun directed the group to a doorway at the far end, asking them to tread lightly, given how strong the acoustics would be in this place. Just as they reached the door, however, two red-glowing Thep Khufan guards jumped out, bearing long staffs tipped with the ankh.

Since they didn't have translators on, to the Tennyson's ears they spoke in a series of low-pitched screeching noises. Elastamun heard them say, "Halt! Surrender yourself now, or be destroyed!"

Ben noticed their staffs glowed with an increasingly bright light, so he impulsively reached for his watch, tapped the start button, rotated the faceplate to show the icon of Diamondhead, and pushed it back down. In a matter of seconds, crystals grew and enveloped his body, turning him into a Petrosapien.

"I'll handle these walking bathrobes!" Ben yelled before charging headlong at the guards. They opened fire at his crystalline form, but the projectiles simply ricocheted off his body. Realizing this, they both dropped their staffs and proceeded to stretch their fingers out in a way that would make a mummy out of him.

"Ben, wait!" Gwen cried. But her cousin was too far away to hear her.

Elastamun felt confused as to why one would deify someone who barrels into combat without thinking.

Ben swiped and slashed at the two guards with his hands turned into crystal shivs. He actually did a good job at cutting most of their bandages, but they grew back almost as fast as he could cut them. Suddenly, smelling an opportunity, Grandpa max noticed that one of the staffs was close to the doorway. Being familiar with advanced weaponry from his time in the Plumbers, he grabbed the end of the staff and looked for its controls. As he did so, Ben tried another move by thrusting his heavy body onto one of the guards, effectively pinning it to the ground.

Then Ben flashed a one-liner, his hands pressed up against the smooth stone tiles, "Eat this, gold-head!" and by his will, crystals sprouted through the floor, cracking the tiles and ripping through the guard's body, even if it was almost done completely wrapping his bulky form.

Meanwhile, Grandpa Max figured out how to fire the staff, and managed to get a few shots off at the guard still standing.

Gwen turned to the scribe and asked him, "So what now? What're we supposed to do, just stand here and keep firing at those people?"

Elastamun thought carefully, and remembered two important things, "Firstly, I know for a fact that the weak point of any Thep Khufan is their heads. All their appendages grow from there. If you cut them off at that point, it will take much longer to grow back. Second, we need transportation to cross this planet's terrain. Not only is it very hot, but also toxic because of the corrodium deposits. We don't even live on the surface."

"Ben! Cut at the head!" Gwen called to her cousin.

In his struggling, Ben managed to hear her words. He sharpened one hand into a spike once more, and rapidly sliced the guard's bandages at the neck, completely severing it from the body. Before they could reattach themselves, he grabbed the guard's head with his other hand and threw it across the sand banks like a football. Good timing, too, for the Omnitrix had drained its power, returning Ben back to normal.

Elastamun urged the Tennysons, "We don't have time for both of them, just run!" before sprinting out the doorway past the guard still standing.

As Gwen, Max, and the mummy passed Ben, who was trying to pull himself free of the inert bandages, Max tossed him a hazmat suit module while he donned his own and Gwen wore hers. Breaking free, he placed the disk on his chest where it vacuum-latched to it, and immediately the suit expanded into place. He ran after his family members shouting, "Hey, wait up!"


	5. Grand Theft Shuttle

They arrived at a courtyard where a large vehicle had been parked. Beyond a large encircling wall, they could see pyramids and a large palace in the distance. Elastamun concentrated on opening the vehicle's bubble-shaped windscreen, finding a switch just below the bottom.

He climbed into the cabin as the glass slid back, beckoning, "You'd best get in before more troops arrive. I have a feeling they know we're here now."

The Tennysons climbed in without question, finding there to be just enough seats for all of them.

"Do you know even how to operate this thing?" Gwen asked him.

"It has been a long time, but I know most of this from human-made vehicles," He muttered while looking over the controls.

He started with a switch on the dash that closed the canopy, followed by a button that powered it on, then he pulled back on a cobra-shaped joystick between the front two seats like in a helicopter.

The boat-shaped craft rose into the air, revealing itself to be a landspeeder. By tilting the joystick forward slightly and pushing a throttle lever forward as well, this set the speeder in motion at rapid speed.

"Whoa!" Ben gasped with surprise.

Gwen looked out the window, along with Grandpa Max. They could see a long line of dozens of Thep Khufans, less lavishly dressed than him, all pushing sleds of limestone blocks towards the construction site of a new pyramid, several miles away from the completed ones.

"Think you could fill us in on what's happening now?" Gwen asked.

Elastamun almost couldn't bear revealing the secrets he'd been told by his master hours back, but his conscience overruled that with the fact that these humans in particular needed to know, more than anybody else. He breathed deeply, then explained, keeping his eyes forward "Years back, this terrible pharaoh, our planetary ruler, started kidnapping humans from your world as a grim remedy for this sickness that plagues us."

"Remedy?" Grandpa Max asked in confusion.

"Basically, they are using kidnapped humans to transform them into our people, which somehow negates the sickness in a single Thep Khufan. My master sent me to find you because this is very similar to the Omnitrix's power."

Ben felt threatened by that last sentence, being all too familiar for being hunted to have it seized for Vilgax. "Why? Are you taking us somewhere to rip this watch off my hand and kill me, like all the others?!"

"No, no, Ben. On the contrary, we find your watch as a valuable asset and believe you can use it to help us fight the pharaoh's forces."

"Fight the pharaoh? Shouldn't we be looking for a palace or something, then?" Gwen asked.

"Yes, but we need reinforcements, and this homing device I was given tells me it lies to the south, so that is where we are headed. The palace, from what I could tell, lies to the north. Once we have our allies, then we will head for the palace."

Gwen asked in confusion, "Sorry for asking, but how exactly will we get an army? Don't those guards have weapons?"

"Ah, that is true, but you may not know that my people practice magic. Only a certain sect of people know it, but it's true. I think it's something to do with manipulating corrodium." He gulped, "Believe me, I saw it for myself when they transformed one of your kind into a Thep Khufan. The last of a group of six-hundred and fifty."

Gwen felt a chill go down her spine. She knew magic too, but not for something as grim as that. Then she cleared her throat and asked, "Do...do these people we're looking for know magic, too?"

"I do not know, but I hope so."

Meanwhile, in pharaoh Rehk'Set's throne room, Valensen was in shackles before him, held by four guards at his sides and back.

"I am gravely disappointed in you, Valensen," he snarled, "For years I trusted you as my adviser, and now you alert this lowly scribe to what is saving our planet."

Deciding his 'playing along' scheme would no longer work, the vizier yelled, "You are ruining this planet! Stealing humans to stabilize our sick infants is cruel, malicious! This is not what the gods would have wanted!"

"I no longer need to use our infants as hosts, for I have had my scientists working on the cure for years. In fact I was about to cure them after our new method was complete. It is, and will be used in our next batch, but now that you have broken my trust...I think it better that they be left to suffer."

A fifth guard rushed into the throne room with a scroll in his left hand. He hastily asked, "I have additional news, my lord!"

"Give it to me, Qual'zen," the pharaoh answered, seeing the guard's cartouche on his uniform.

Unrolling the scroll, he reported, "Elastamun is on the move, he has brought three human beings with him and stolen a hover cruiser. One of the guards we sent when we detected the portal jump had suffered casualties during the fight."

"Send reinforcements to ensure he does not reach Mos Isis. The resistance has been growing in strength there and I sense he carries the catalyst that gives them the strength to raise Apophis."

"Yes, sir."

"And, do away with this traitor; place him in the...incineration chamber."

Valensen knew immediately that that was one of the worst punishments a Thep Khufan could suffer. To have one's organic bandages burned agonizingly slowly would be a nightmare, and unless the fire was stopped, they could not possibly regenerate.

"Do you have anything more to say before Anubis takes your soul?" Rehk'Set ominously asked his former vizier.

Struggling against his chains, he grunted, "You...your name is brilliant, I will say that much. For the god of chaos must possess you to come up with such a twisted way to preserve our species by sacrificing another in exchange. The being of a thousand beings will surely avenge my death, that is certain; Horus will protect my pupil and all allied with him, and Anubis may well see me to the afterlife no matter what you do to me."

"So be it," Rehk'Set finished, his low voice resonating in the throne room now that everyone else had quieted down.

The guards removed his golden falcon headdress that covered his ornately carved mask head, along with his purple cloak, revealing his simple kilt, arm and shin guards. Then, still in chains, they escorted him through a door behind the throne, down the stairs to a dungeon.

He noticed prison cells where a few Khufans bulged with the bodies of human beings, their skin faintly protruding through the bandages. It seemed that these were enslaved humans who didn't obey the will of the pharaoh.

One of them, Caucasian in ethnicity, weakly begged, "Help me!" They even tried to manipulate the bandages wrapped about their bodies, but something, probably a spell, prevented that from happening. A part of Valensen wanted to believe that gaining powers like that, otherwise, might be a blessing. Just not if given against a human's will. He grieved for these poor souls, being the one more aware of the gravity of all this than his scribe. He just hoped, one way or another, whatever happened to Valensen, Elastamun and Ben 10 would avenge him.

Then the guards shoved him into a room and shackled his limbs to a wall in an X-pattern. Directly across from him stood a large, bulky Pyronite. Valensen had expected flamethrowers or a pit of coals, but to be fired upon by a being that controlled fire was thrice as worse. Even more than a firing squad with shotguns, or an incinerator.

As they left, the last guard looked at the magma-based alien, and pointed in his prisoner's direction. The pyronite nodded, waited for the guard to leave, then as he heard the heavy locks click shut, the alien raised its arms, charged them with his inner energy, and blasted the vizier with searing flame.

While the flames licked his bandages, Valensen focused his last thoughts on the hopes that Elastamun would bring a battle to the pharaoh's door and free the enslaved humans. It was all that mattered to him now, even more than his own life. He prayed that Osiris would show mercy on his soul.

In the speeder, the passengers watched as the dreary desert wasteland zoomed by, glowing with deposits of corrodium sprinkled across the sand. For miles, the terrain was absent of buildings or monuments, even with the rapid speed of the hover-cruiser.

Elastamun watched as the homing device blinked faster and faster like his own, proving that their destination was not far off. On the horizon, he could barely see a city protruding from the sand dunes, and he stated, "We are approaching a city now, I sense that is where the resistance will be."

Max asked him, "Something's fishy here, sir. Why are humans being kidnapped and...transformed like this?"

"I do not know, only that the pharaoh Rehk'Set orchestrated this. My master told me that the pharaoh is cruel and exploits these people to do his bidding. They even use mind control to keep them in line," Elastamun paused, then added, "Some pieces to this puzzle are still missing, but I feel that when we reach our destination, we will find them."

Suddenly, a radar-like instrument on the dashboard began beeping, showing three red lights closing in from behind the ship.

"Uh oh, I think the guards found us," he gasped. Flipping a switch, a monitor slid up to show a rearview camera feed, showing three red speeders closing in on them.

"How do we get rid of them?" Max asked.

Elastamun noticed a different set of controls in the passenger seat next to him, which Grandpa Max happened to be sitting in, then he told the elderly man, "I think there's a gunner's console where you are sitting, sir. You might be able to use it to fend off the enemy speeders."

Max looked at the controls in front of him, and noticed that they looked like the controls of a few alien ships he'd seen while in the Plumbers group. In front of him was a screen with a heads-up display facing forward like in a fighter jet. A switch near it turned the feed to aft view, and on the left was a large switch that toggled between fore or aft shields. Fortunately, everything was marked by icons, rather than text, which helped him understand these controls.

Finally, he shrugged and said, "Here goes nothing,"

Tilting the joystick so that the crosshair lined up with the middle of the three speeders, he squeezed the fire button on the joystick's end, and immediately, a plasma machinegun opened fire on the craft. The other cruiser fired back, prompting Max to toggle to aft shielding.

Ben and Gwen, though strapped into their seats in the back, felt nervous about who were controlling this vehicle. This was different than when their grandfather drove the Rust Bucket; this time, an alien was driving and Grandpa Max was playing gunner. All the children could do was sit back and hope for the best.

Then someone broke in over the radio, which Elastamun interpreted as, "Attention operator of landspeeder seven-ex-alpha, land your vehicle now or you will be shot down."

"Keep firing, we're almost there!" Elastamun ordered Max.

However, the enemy craft were gaining on the stolen vehicle, and appeared to be preparing to fire a barrage of missiles.

Ben was growing impatient, and spoke up, "Hey, can't I do something about this?"

Elastamun thought this over, then said, "If you can somehow down these speeders with your other forms, then perhaps we will stand a chance. Brace yourself," then he tapped the canopy button, raising the front half of the glass bubble, letting in a rushing sand-filled wind, which would've been toxic if they weren't wearing their hazmat suits.

Quickly, Ben unstrapped his seat belt, climbed up onto the edge of the open cockpit, and, realizing it was covered up, disengaged the hazmat suit and pocketed the module. Then, holding his breath just as one of the speeders slid into view and aimed its missile launchers at the craft, Ben activated the watch again and this time switched to Fourarms, on the assumption that he'd destroy the craft with his muscular form. Instead, as had happened numerous times, the Omnitrix switched his selection to Upgrade, the amorphous nanotech-based form.

"Aw man, not again!" Ben groaned.

"I'm noticing a trend here," Gwen muttered.

Making up a plan B on the fly, Ben jumped from Elastamun's speeder to the guard's, prompting the scribe to shut the windscreen again, leaving most of the interior coated in wind-blasted sand.

On landing, one of the missiles fired, but it simply blew a hole in Upgrade's liquid form. Then, reaching out, Upgrade expanded around the ship and enhanced its technology while simultaneously taking control of it. The guard and gunner inside were shocked at this, noticing Ben's single eye blinking on the video screen as he spoke to them, "Sorry, folks, but I need this for a bit. Why don't you just sit back and relax?"

Tentacles sprouted from the coated seats and restrained them in a way that they couldn't move their bandages. Simultaneously, Upgrade reprogrammed the speeder's flight computer to steer it in front of the other two guard speeders whilst Grandpa Max kept firing the laser turret. Using his own internal heads-up display connected to the ship's computer, Upgrade aimed the missile launchers at the other two speeders, scanned for any weak spots, and fired at them, with his shields working at double their original protective power against the enemy fire. Spectacularly, the missiles hit their mark, destroying the speeder's thrusters in such a way that its flight path would destabilize and down the craft.

Unfortunately, just as Upgrade managed to fire a few dents at the speeder behind them, already weakend by Max's firepower, the Omnitrix sounded its time-out warning. He just managed to power down the speeder's engine before having to detach and turn back into Ben, sending him flying onto the scribe's craft and plastered against the windscreen, making him open and shut it again to let Ben inside.

The city was just a few miles out now, but several events happened almost simultaneously: The third guard speeder did the same trick Ben did, by firing missiles at the speeder's engines and sending it into a tailspin; Someone at the city fired a laser cannon at the enemy speeder and downed it shortly after, then, as he screamed "Everyone brace for impact!", alarms blaring inside the cockpit, Elastamun's hijacked speeder crash-landed 10 feet from the city's walls, sending parts flying all over the sand and engaging momentum-negating safety systems.

All around the cockpit the speeder was in pieces. The windscreen shattered, controls offline, but the four passengers were safe.

"Well, we're here," Elastamun muttered while unstrapping his safety belt. The falcon amulet was glowing a solid bright blue, confirming his statement.

With the Tennysons still wearing their hazmat suits, including Ben who'd re-donned his just before the crash-landing, they unstrapped and climbed out of the wrecked vehicle.

As they hopped onto the sand and looked back at the endless desert behind them, Max asked, "You think those guards are still after us?"

"Probably, but we'll be safe. I noticed someone shot down their craft with a laser cannon from here," Elas discussed.

The group proceeded to the front gates of the city, and Elastamun used a knocker to alert a sentry behind a peephole. Showing her the amulet, they were admitted inside.

Looking up, Elastamun noticed a sign on one of the gates, and, translating it, he stated, "We've arrived at 'Mos Isis', it seems."

Ben jumped at the name, "You'll never find a more wretched hive of-"

"What?"

"Nothing, thought of something else."


	6. Golden Guard

Mos Isis, as it turned out, was not the kind of Egyptian city they expected. Ben assumed it'd be one of those bustling bazaars he sometimes saw in movies, even though those were more accurately in the Middle East. Instead, the various buildings still shared the heavily geometric style common to old Egyptian buildings, but incredibly smooth, dark and intricate, as if forged by modern technology. Black obelisks lined the walkways. Thep Khufans and other alien beings strutted about their business on foot; Max noticed a spaceship taking off in the background. Overall, this entire area looked just as advanced as the temple; Yet it again made him wonder which came first: Human Egyptians or Thep Khufans?

Elastamun looked at his amulet again, and saw that the light was concentrated towards the top, down an avenue cutting through the middle of the city.

The sentry, wearing a black cloth headdress reminiscent of the way Egyptian women cut their hair, turned to the scribe and said, "We saw your ship fleeing the pharaoh's warriors. Ja'Kaal has told me to admit whoever bears his sign of the Falcon, and that is you."

"Indeed I am," he nodded.

"I am Ilais (Ih-LAYS), member of the Rigil clan of warriors, and..." the sentry paused when she looked at the suited humans behind him, and readied a long spear, asking in an alert voice, "Who are these beings you brought here?"

Elastamun reached out his right arm to block the spear, pleading, "They are with me, I come bearing the being of a thousand beings! If you will allow me to bring them some translators, I can prove it."

"Very well, the nearest tech stall is down the first street to your right," Ilais directed by elongating a finger down that way. "But until I see proof on your claim, I am not letting your...guests out of my sight. Understand?"

"Yes, madam." The scribe turned to the kids and said, "Stay here, I will be back in a moment."

Gwen had a feeling Ben would do the exact opposite in the next few minutes. With that giant spear, and several more in her quiver, however, Ben actually decided to stay put, thinking it better than getting shish-kabobbed.

Meanwhile, as fast as he could, Elastamun searched the market street for a gadget store, passing others that sold items like food, scrolls, and even artifacts from other worlds. This particular area resonated with him, being very familiar with a similar place on Earth. Having all but forgotten about it, in his cloak, Elastamun just happened to have an Anurrian credit charm next to his wad of Egyptian Pounds, which he used to use before embarking on his research mission, though he had long forgotten how much was on it.

Finally, wedged between two other shops was a small stall reading "Tech and Wares" in Khufan language, selling electronic parts and gadgets of all shapes and sizes.

A Transyllian showed up from a door deeper in the building, muscular and having somehow grafted implants into his head that could fit computer chips. "Yes? You want something?" He asked in a raspy, slightly augmented voice.

"Get me three universal translators, on the double," Elastamun demanded while placing his credit charm on the counter. The shopkeeper took the little brass disc and tapped it, showing a hologram in Thep Khufan numerals, which explained that he had 596 Anurrian credits left, about an average citizen's wages. The translators were 150 credits apiece, so that covered it.

As the shop owner reached under the counter and pulled out three tiny plastic boxes containing the translators, he asked, "Say, you work with the pharaoh? We don't get rich people like you out here."

"I would rather not talk about it, sir," the scribe grumbled as he took the little cubes.

"Whatever you say," the owner shrugged as he scanned the charm, then handed it back to the mummy.

Elastamun thanked the alien, pocketed everything, and sprinted back towards the city entrance.

Ben had been growing antsy and wanted to run off, but just as he was about to do so, Elastamun returned. He pulled out the little boxes from his cloak and handed each one to the Tennysons.

The scribe instructed, "Take these devices out and attach them to the backs of your necks," gesturing to that spot with his hand.

"Is the air safe here?" Max asked before reaching for the button on his suit module.

"Mos Isis' walls protect us from the desert sand and hot air, and we have shields that block corrodium radiation," Ilais begrudgingly answered. Elastamun relayed that message with a simple "Yes."

Then Ben deactivated his suit and pocketed the module once again, then he opened his box, pushed a little red button on his translator to activate it, and stuck it to the back of his neck. Gwen and Grandpa Max followed suit.

Ilais reaffirmed herself and demanded, "Now, scribe, show me what you have brought into this city."

Eager about that kind of attention, Ben raised his left arm to show the Omnitrix on his wrist. Ilais gasped, then bowed before him, surprising Gwen and Max.

"Praise Ra! The being has arrived!" She cheered, now in a language the Tennysons could understand. "Forgive my brash judgment, great one!"

Ben smiled, his heroic ego liking this kind of treatment. "At ease, warrior," he swiftly commanded her.

Ilais calmed down and finished, "You may go about the city as you wish. Now, move along."

"Thank you for your time, miss," Grandpa Max nodded.

As they left, Ilais eyed Ben suspiciously for a moment, but said nothing.

With that, guided by the amulet, the group of four strolled down the city's main street, passing obelisks with depictions of the Egyptian Gods, hieroglyphs with religious prayers around them. Everything about this street felt dedicated to the gods, and the district they were entering contained several shrines to them. Several passing aliens were surprised to see these visitors here, but were too busy to stop or ask questions. Max noticed how the people wearing colored cloaks and golden headgear appeared less than those who didn't have them, suggesting a class divide of some kind, though he couldn't tell what.

Finally, the road ended in a courtyard with a sphinx in the center, where other roads radiated from it in a spoke-like pattern. This sphinx seemed to have the body of a Vulpimancer, also known by Ben as "Wildmutt", but bearing a Thep Khufan face, complete with a pharaoh's headdress. The Tennysons found this imagery bizarre in comparison to the one on Earth.

Elastamun approached the base of the sphinx, amulet in hand. He found a circular slot set in the gap between its feet, and set the amulet in place. With a blue flash, part of the floor began to drop as the gap ejected the amulet back out. The whole group soon found themselves on an elevator leading several feet below the city, a slab of concrete covering the hole above them. It ended in a smooth stone corridor lit by two lines of tiny green lights in the edges of the ceiling.

"What is this? Some kind of bomb shelter?" Ben asked.

"Kind of reminds me of that place under Mount Rushmore," Gwen remarked.

Elastamun was reminded of his own home, but this place looked higher-end in comparison, less dug-out.

The corridor ended at a set of metal sliding doors inlaid with hieroglyphs they couldn't read. Before Elastamun could say anything, more lights flashed on, and a pair of turret guns deployed from the walls. A computerized voice stated, "Stand by for decontamination and scanning."

Instead of bullets, the guns sprayed the group with disinfectant liquid, followed by a grid of laser beams from the same walls, sliding back and forth to gather biometric data on these visitors.

The computer suddenly started beeping when it finished scanning Ben, warning, "Alert: foreign technology detected. Analyzing."

Several seconds passed, then the computer declared, "Scan process complete; you are cleared for entry." With that, the metal doors slid open with an ominous clunk, revealing a complex room beyond, populated with several Thep Khufans and other aliens decked in colorful golden costumes.

The one closest to the door, wearing a blue and gold falcon headdress and a blue robe, much like Valensen's, ushered them in. He greeted them with a bow, "Welcome, friends. Sorry for the security measures, we have been anxious of discovery by the pharaoh these past weeks."

"I can imagine," Elastamun humored him. "And you are?"

"I am Ja'Kaal, leader of the Golden Guard," the blue Khufan introduced himself, "We were informed of your arrival an hour ago, it must have been brutal crash-landing like that."

"Not to mention being shot at," Ben complained.

Ja'Kaal looked at the humans and smiled, then asked, "Please, follow me. My colleagues are eager to see what has put the pharaoh in such a state lately."

With that, Ja'Kaal brought the group deeper into the fortress.

Gwen commented, "A secret organization of mummies? What next?"

"Reminds me of a cartoon I used to watch, actually," Ben mentioned. "Mummies Alive or something."

And the parallel fit, for when they entered a vehicle bay inside the bunker, three other Thep Khufans decked in equally colored outfits turned towards the Tennysons.

Ja'Kaal pointed with his hand towards the others and introduced them one by one. "These are my top affiliates. Neferti, my melee operative," pointing to a female Khufan practicing with a bo staff and wearing a slim red jumpsuit with a mask head reminiscent of a cat, "Raht, my tactician," pointing to a male wearing a cylindrical Egyptian hat in green and yellow colors, writing something on a scroll, "and Marnor, my weapons specialist," pointing to a bulky-looking Thep Khufan sporting a helmet with ram's horns, working on the engine of a nearby vehicle. His right arm had apparently been replaced with a large, metallic prosthetic one.

"Who is this?" Raht asked in a stiff voice as he looked up from his work.

"Are those humans?" Marnor inquired.

"That one in the red robe looks cute," Neferti chuckled.

Elastamun looked down at his cloak and chuckled, having never been complimented like that before.

Raht put down his scroll and stepped towards the visiting group, asking the leader, "Ja'Kaal, I say again, who have you brought into our domain?"

"Please, my friend, these are our honored guests! They evaded the pharaoh's forces just to reach the city. And from our scans, you of all people should know that one of these humans bears the Omnitrix."

"The Omnitrix?!" The three mummies gasped in unison.

Ben milked this, much to the chagrin of his grandfather and boredom of his cousin, "Yes, you stand within the presence of Ben Tennyson, hero of a thousand heroes!" he flamboyantly cheered while holding his left arm skyward.

The four mummies stood before him and bowed at his feet like Ilais did. Ja'Kaal groveled, "The prophecy is true! The being of beings has been sent by Ra to give us the strength to fight the pharaoh's army and heal our sickness!"

Marnor added, "We are in your service, great one!"

Gwen interrupted, "Hey, that's enough! Ben's not a god, he's my cousin."

Max scolded his grandson, "Ben, don't abuse these peoples' trust. It could get us into trouble."

"All right, Grandpa," Ben sighed as he lowered his arm.

"Who are these two? Your servants?" Raht inquired as he raised his head.

Both Gwen and Max were annoyed at this, but Elastamun answered, "Please, there is no need for such undue reverence. All three of these humans are of equal importance, as they worked together to defeat Zs'Skayr on Earth. Just because one of them bears the Omnitrix does not mean one is more significant than another."

The four Thep Khufans were startled by that story, prompting the group to stop bowing and rise to their feet once more. Ja'Kaal hesitantly asked, "Zs'Skayr is truly gone? We knew that his crushing influence had left us for at least 30 cycles, but were never sure of his whereabouts."

Grandpa Max explained, "We stopped him from spraying our planet – Earth – with corrodium that'd block out the sun and mutate all life."

"I have visual data to prove it," Elastamun tapped his pectoral ornament.

"But now he's stuck in my watch again," Ben hesitantly added, pointed to the faceplate.

"Again? You mean he was in the Omnitrix before?" Neferti asked this concern.

"Pray you never become his form, it would be no different than how Rehk'Set controls the minds of his slaves," Ja'Kaal shuddered.

Marnor changed the subject, "Enough dark subjects! We must celebrate the arrival of our savior with a feast!"

"Agreed, the timing could not be better," the leader nodded, then he reached for an intercom and tapped the "Page" switch.

A gruff voice on the other side answered, "Yes, my lord?"

"Valdor, please inform the chef to prepare the special feast we've planned for this day, our savior has come," the leader ordered.

"Yes, master."

Ben smiled, knowing that neither he nor his relatives had eaten or drank anything in hours.

Then Ja'Kaal crossed the large room, and beckoned, "While we wait, why don't we show you around our base? I think you will like it."


	7. The Golden Guard

Back at the palace, Rehk'Set received new information from his messenger.

"My lord, I'm afraid that the scribe and his human companions are in Mos Isis. All three speeders were shot down shortly before theirs was. Someone in the city fired on us, and one of the craft was sabotaged by a Galvanic Mechomorph during the attack."

The pharaoh banged his left fist on the throne, howling, "Who could possibly have that much firepower against MY warriors?! We are not dealing with soldiers, but a scribe and three lowly human life forms!"

"I beg to differ, my lord," another Thep Khufan added.

"Who dares talk back to me?!" Rehk'Set snarled.

"I have received data that one of these humans bears the Omnitrix," the robed servant explained. Holding out a thick metal platter, a hologram appeared showing video footage filmed from what looked like a body cam from one of the temple guards. It paused on one frame, zoomed in, frame by frame, and clearly showed Ben's watch in the shot.

"Hmm, I see. That would explain the appearance of a foreign creature," the pharaoh sighed, somewhat calmer now.

"Are the stories true?" the servant asked, "Is this the being of a thousand beings we are looking for?"

"I do not believe in such rumors," Rehk'Set answered, "but a device such as that would no doubt pose a threat to my empire. It must be seized immediately, or else the resistance may well use it against me."

"Shall I inform the troops?" A Petrosapien guard asked.

"No, Captain Drexel. I think a quieter approach is necessary this time."

Rehk'Set looked at his guards and servants, then commanded, "Begone, I must speak to someone in private."

The people then left, and the pharaoh reached for a scarab-shaped handheld device on a small table next to his throne. Tapping its head opened up the device's components, revealing it to be a compact communication gadget. The head flipped up to show a hologram projector and speaker, while the space between the wings held a microphone and a few buttons. He tapped one of the buttons on the bottom, and the projector sparked to life to show Ilais' head projected in crystal clear definition.

"Greetings, pharaoh. What do you require of me?" she asked, "I have barely spoken with you in so long."

"First, did the foreigners gain entry?" Rehk'Set jumped to the point.

"Yes, I confirm the presence of three human beings and a scribe. The latter provided the humans with translators so that they can commune with us."

"Continue, I need all the information we can get on these intruders."

"Yes, one of them, a young male, bears the Omnitrix. I played along with the rumors, annoying though it was, then let them pass."

"Why didn't you follow them in?"

"I would have left my post as a sentry; people would have noticed. Besides, I do not wish the Golden Guard harm, they are still my friends even though I serve you."

Rehk'Set tried to hold back a rant, then he breathed deeply, and stated, "Ilais, I have new orders for you," he muttered into its microphone.

"I am listening, son of Ra."

"Keep your eyes on that boy and monitor his whereabouts. I deduce that the resistance will be launching vehicles towards my palace soon, so when that happens, hide yourself on whatever ship he has boarded, then report back to me."

"It will be done, my lord. But promise that you will not harm Ja'Kaal, the humans, that scribe, or his elite warriors."

Hesitating again, the pharaoh said, "By the sacred river, I give you my word."

With that, he closed the communicator and set it back down, sitting back in his throne to think of the future, and what a stupid thing he just said.

As the group passed through a set of automated doors out of the vehicle bay, Ja'Kaal explained as the group walked, "This entire area was initially made for the city as an emergency shelter in case of a massive attack. We are using it as our base to hide from Rehk'Set's forces, and the people on the surface do not mind."

Raht added, "As a matter of fact, some of the people up there bring us supplies now and again, and others live up top."

"I wish someone could find a cure for this sickness going around," Nefer muttered. "It took my infant daughter."

Elastamun pitied her, "I am sorry to hear that, my lady."

The scribe didn't seem to notice that Neferti was discreetly holding his left hand. The interlock was so secure that her fingers stretched when they turned corners.

"By the way, I don't thing we got your names," Raht pointed out.

Gwen started with hers, then Max, having already heard Ben's.

"A family, I see. You two children are lucky to be alive," Ja'Kaal warned.

Ben and Gwen looked at each other, unsure as to what he meant.

"I am...Elastamun, scribe to the pharaoh. Or perhaps formerly to the pharaoh would be more appropriate."

"How intriguing," Raht inquired. "What do you record?"

"I can explain later when we find a projector or other such devices," he answered.

They passed a gym where a number of aliens were training. Ben felt curious about this, and stepped in, followed by the rest of the group.

"Ah, yes, this is where we train ourselves for combat," Raht described.

"Ben sure could've used this when we were training him on Earth," Max chuckled.

"Grandpa!" Ben groaned.

He wasn't wrong, the whole room was fitted with dozens of different equipment for battle and exercise training. Target ranges, dummies, weights, cardio equipment, guns with dummy rounds, bows and arrows, spears, even two large rooms that seemed to be dedicated to simulating vehicles and combat scenarios. All this made Max's one-use makeshift system on Earth look primitive by comparison.

Suddenly, the boy's eyes were drawn by something jumping in and out of a swimming pool through the windows of a walled-off room at the far end. As he crossed the room for a closer look, passing a Loboan wrestling with a robotic training dummy and a Transylian using its green electricity in target practice, Ben noticed that the swimming athlete inside was a Piscciss Volann, known to him as "Ripjaws", one of his least used forms due to its constant need for water.

"Who's that, over in the pool?" he asked, half-curious, half-scared, now that he knew what alien it was.

"That's Undyyne (Uhn-Deen), one of our best warriors," Neferti answered.

"What would a Ripjaws alien be doing on a desert world?" Gwen asked, confused.

"You mean Piscciss Volann? She wanted to join our cause against Rehk'Set when a friend of ours visited her world several cycles ago," Raht elaborated. "She always says she'll never refuse a challenge."

"And from what we've seen, she built this armored suit that let's her breathe water on land for long periods of time," Raht added. "I fancy how her inventive talents appear similar to my own."

"Oh look, she's finishing up now!" Neferti gasped while pointing to the window.

Undyyne stepped carefully out of the pool, stretched her limbs, and walked towards a set of reinforced lockers. Ben couldn't help but admire the blue color of her scales alongside her long red dorsal fin. That color scheme stood out to him a lot more than his white-and-pale-green Ripjaws form. Barely visible from this distance, Ben also saw how her right eye had been somehow been scratched or shot out in some battle, leaving a very prominent scar above and below the eye socket. In its stead was a very protrusive spherical bionic eye.

Opening one of the lockers, Undyyne stepped into her protective suit, which actually appeared slimmer than the Tennysons imagined, black and almost form-fitting in design. Stepping out of the pool room, the warrior approached the Golden Guard leaders, content on finishing her exercise for the day.

"Good day, Undyyne. How goes your training?" Ja'Kaal inquired.

"Couldn't be better, although I still await the day when I can practice on a live target!" She proudly answered in a husky female voice. Ben noticed how less gravelly it sounded compared to his own form. Somehow, he was starting to like this warrior.

"Uh, hi, I'm Ben Tennyson," he tried to introduce himself as politely as possible.

She eyed the Tennysons and the scribe, then looked at Ja'Kaal's group. "What're human beings doing here?" the warrior asked.

"They are our guests, having come a long way to defeat the pharaoh's troops," the leader explained.

Undyyne looked down at the boy who spoke to her. The targeting software in her bionic eye locked onto his head, analyzing his body and displaying data that read: "Carbon-based humanoid life form. Regeneration factor: 2.3%, Respiration: Oxygen."

It also scanned the watch, reading, "Identified: Omnitrix transformation device. Origin: [CLASSIFIED]." Normally she used her helmet for this, being more accurate.

"Oh, the savior," she scoffed. "You don't look like much with that little piece of hardware on your wrist."

"Looks can be deceiving, you know," he seemed to flirt, reaching for the watch.

"Ben, no!" Gwen grabbed his arm. "Not...not yet." Looking up at the imposing fish hybrid, she stammered, "I'm...I'm his cousin, Gwen."

"Sure," then Undyyne looked back at Ben and crouched so that her head was just above his, the plasma lights overhead illuminating everything stark white. Ben could hear the water churning in her suit's respiration tanks. Undyyne spoke to him, poking a claw at his chest, "Well, if you're as tough as you or the stories say you are, show me tomorrow morning, at..." she paused, unsure about his calendar, "What does your time system run on?"

"24 hours a day?" he asked in fear. "I usually get up around...0700 hours," he remembered military time from his grandfather.

"That time, then," she smiled, leaning back upright. Out of nowhere, a spear made of glowing blue energy materialized in her right hand. She spun it and laughed, "By then, I'LL be the judge of whether you have the edge we need to take on the pharaoh's army! Be seeing you then, Ben Tennyson!"

"Well...we'd best be off," Raht finished while leading the tour onward.

"What have I gotten myself into?" Ben gulped as he followed the group further into the base.

"You go around taunting tough guys, this is what happens," Max chided.

The tour continued counterclockwise along the base's circular hallway, with radiating paths in a similar spoke-like pattern to the plaza on the surface. They briefly stopped at a large dormitory, where Ja'Kaal pointed out, "After dinner, you can sleep here for the night if you wish."

"Gladly, we could use a rest after all that action," Max agreed, feeling soreness in his joints.

Next up was a supply room and armory with real weapons. Ben was intimidated by a number of large weapons inside, though Gwen recognized them as similar to some that her grandfather used.

Finally, just before the entrance, a briefing room stood, with a table, seating about 12 people, and set up in a way that it resembled the figure of Geb, the Earth god. The ceiling, likewise, had been painted in the form of the sky goddess, Nut. The back wall, concave in design, held a large holographic projector for presentations.

"Well, after all you've been through, I suppose now would be as good a time for...what do they call it, a debriefing?" Raht proposed.

Elastamun, who had kept quiet most of the time, agreed, "Yes, I have much to show you."

Once again, the scribe handed over his right gauntlet and collar, which Rath hooked up to the projector using its wireless interface. Neferti shut the door and dimmed the lights, then took her seat with the rest of them.

"So you're a scribe, Elastamun?" Ja'Kaal asked, "What exactly did you record, again?"

The video footage recorded over the years played back as he answered, "Humans, for their anatomy and behavior. I was sent to Earth for around fifteen of their years to study them in a country called Egypt, disguised as one of them."

"Interesting," Raht remarked.

"There was this one human I called my friend in all that time. His name was Ahmed," the footage of the curio shop happened to appear as he said that. "This person sold artifacts from various human time periods, and would it surprise you that, long ago, human Egyptian culture was not far off from ours?"

"Is that a fact?" Grandpa Max asked. "The advanced structures here threw me off."

"Maybe a bit more primitive," Elastamun tried to clarify.

"Hey!" Ben shouted.

"Sometimes I dreamed about traveling back in time to see those ancient societies for myself," Elastamun lamented, "I didn't really like modern Earth, too war-torn."

"Time travel, wouldn't that be nice?" Neferti sighed.

Grandpa Max suggested, "Things are a lot nicer in America this time of year, you know."

"I guessed that, I just didn't have the money or documents to leave Egypt," the scribe elaborated. Then he told Ja'Kaal, "Fast forward it some, it's largely more of the same until recently."

Using a remote, Ja'Kaal sped up the footage until the part where Ahmed mentioned Ben came up.

"Whoa, am I famous?" Ben asked when he heard the merchant speaking his name from the newspapers.

"Ben, cut it out," Gwen scolded him. "All these legends have gone to your head!"

"Anyway," Elastamun continued, waiting until the footage led up to the event in question, "Everything changed when my master, the pharaoh's vizier, asked me to come back to this world for a moment. That's when he told me of what this human data was for." He paused, afraid to speak the next few words that could change history, but couldn't help it, "The pharaoh...used my research mission to kidnap humans and turn them into our kind."

The four elite guardsmen leaned back in horror, all gasping in unison.

"Look at that!" Gwen gasped, looking at the hologram.

Everyone in the room was horrified when seeing Elastamun's camera footage on exactly how Rehk'Set transformed humans.

"Wow, that's gotta hurt," Ben cringed at hearing the prisoner's bones crack.

"You...how did you get this footage?" Raht stammered.

"I hid in a corner of the room where the guards would not see me. Believe me, I was never informed of that cruel remedy until that point. The vizier even admitted he was ordered by the pharaoh not to tell me, effectively lying about the true nature of it all until he could hold his tongue no more."

Marnor banged his organic hand on the table, growling, "That's insane!"

Raht added, "I knew something was up when I saw all those lesser Khufans appear without warning."

"Well, Elastamun," Ja'Kaal declared, "If nothing else, you have brought us a great deal of information on the pharaoh's methods, information that we may be able to use to free his captured slaves."

Raht commented, "I am unsure as to how reversing a magic-induced transformation would work, considering what that did to the host's body, but it is better than nothing."

"So do we form an attack now?" Marnor eagerly asked.

"That will be tomorrow, Marnor. A warrior is always patient," Ja'Kaal answered.

"You are right," the big man sighed. "Just eager is all."

Then the footage slid forward to show the purple sky cover, making the guardsmen literally jump back in fright. Marnor even fell out of his seat.

"Is that...corrodium?" Ja'Kaal asked in curiosity. "Who could have such power to be able to fill an entire planet's sky with it?"

"Zs'Skayr is the culprit, so the Tennysons say."

"To be honest, I was inclined to write your story off as fantasy," Raht admitted, "but this footage proves it as true as the sun that crosses the sky,"

Seeing the part where the corrodium wave stopped, Max leaned back and chuckled, "Hehe, while my grandkids took care of his minions on the station, I stopped the corrodium by ramming this spaceship into a transmitter that...um, Ziss-Scare was using to send it to Earth." The four elite warriors turned to their guests and smiled. Neferti stretched her arm across the table and patted Max on the shoulder.

As the video came to an end and the projector powered down, Ja'Kaal declared, "You people should be commended for the feats you've accomplished in the span of one day. You, Elastamun for uncovering the pharoh's secrets, and you three...Tennysons for defeating Zs'Skayr! Men, applaud for our heroes!"

The other three warriors promptly clapped their hands for this victory.

All of a sudden, the PA system beeped with the entrance's computer voice, "Attention: Dinner is now ready in the mess hall."

"About time, too!" Marnor whooped as he stood back up.

Gwen inquired, "Say, if all you're made of is just a head that grows bandages, how do you eat?"

Raht was about to explain, but stopped and said, "You wouldn't understand, it's too complicated."

"What're we waiting for? I'm starving!" Ben shouted as he ran off to join Marnor.

With that, the rest of the group filed out of the briefing room – Elastamun stopping to grab his gear – and followed the winding hallway to the mess hall.


	8. Debriefing

Ben's group and the guardsmen were joined in the hallway by dozens of Thep Khufans and assorted aliens, most of them from this planetary system. Questions still amassed in the Tennysons' minds over this and how this planet worked as a whole; and they were rather disappointed that no one had stopped to let them ask. Gwen figured she'd ask one of them personally after dinner.

When they arrived in the mess hall, only one table was free for the group of eight. On it, rather than being forced to wait in line with trays, several covered platters had been set for whoever would sit there, complete with elegant-looking, gold-colored tablecloths.

Raht reminded him, "We only have our food served this way for special occasions, such as this."

"Glad this is one of them," Marnor smiled as he sat down.

When the Tennysons lifted the covers on their plates, they were startled to see how foreign this food appeared, in varying shades of brown and not easy to tell what kind of food each piece was supposed to be, not to mention the hefty servings each plate held. Gwen guessed it had to be an assortment of meat chunks and vegetables with some kind of seasoning on top, just not the kind they were used to. Ben had flashbacks to when he was on Slix Vigma's gladiator ship, forced to fight for his life while shackled to Kevin 11, and the only food they had was a smelly purple slime. But to Ben's surprise, this meal smelled okay when he took a good whiff.

Max dined cheerfully, but his grandchildren required some coaxing, saying, "It's rude to refuse food given from others."

When they did, having to get used to the utensils, the kids discovered it was actually quite savory, if a bit spicy. Fortunately, water was provided for everyone.

Elastamun piped up after swallowing a bite, "You know, this actually reminds me of Fattah, a traditional Egyptian dish served on Earth."

"The parallels continue, I see," Ja'Kaal chuckled.

A few more bites into his plate, Grandpa Max looked up and smirked, "You should've seen the kind of meals I made for my grandkids."

Ben gulped, and Gwen interrupted immediately, "You...you don't need to know the details, really!"

The conversation didn't go much further than that during the meal, aside from the occasional interests in Earth cuisine and questions as to how the Thep Khufans were able to get food like this.

Once the feast was over, Ja'Kaal asked his guests as he stood, "Is there anything else you wish to see before lights out?"

Gwen took the chance and asked, "Is there anything here about this culture we can look at? We...didn't really get to ask about that in the briefing room."

"As a matter of fact," Raht answered, "We have a library two rooms over. Just follow me."

They looked back at Max and the others, and he told his grandkids, "You go on ahead, I think me and...Mr. Amun'll be turning in early."

Elastamun laughed over what he was just called, "I had never been called that before, but that is a nice...um, nickname to go by."

"I would like to join you as well, Max," Nefterti asked. "The more sleep I have, the better my body will be for tomorrow."

"Count me in with Gwen," Ben joined in, "I'd like to know why people think I'm some god."

"Very well, we will see you at sunrise, then," Ja'Kaal nodded before leaving with Marnor, Max, and the scribe for the dormitory along with everyone else.

The young Tennysons followed Raht down the main corridor to another room, this one marked by a sign reading "LIBRARY". Inside was a hexagonal chamber filled with cells containing thick scrolls in tube-shaped cases. A desk sat in the middle, with what looked like an orrery suspended from the ceiling.

Gwen started as the doors shut behind the group, "So, first question, sir: Why exactly does this place look and work so much like Ancient Egypt, except with advanced technology?"

"That is a complicated question, young girl," Raht remarked. He turned to a small clay figure on a pedestal, among others between each column of cells, held it in his hand, and commanded, "Shabti, locate records on our history between the end of the Ectonurites' reign, and today."

"Your wish is my command," the little figure croaked before hopping up into the honeycomb of knowledge. The kids watched as it pulled two scrolls out of a pair of cells, making sure that the others didn't fall.

Then it stuffed the two scrolls down a tube running the height of each divider between the columns, popping out at the bottom like a bank deposit tube.

"Thank you, that will be all," the tactician nodded to the clay figure as he opened one of the cases. Unrolling the scroll as the shabti returned to where it started, he paused, lowered the scroll and asked his guests, "Hmm, would you like to hear a story? This scroll has much to tell,"

"Yes, sir," Gwen nodded, "That'd be great!"

"Then please sit, if you may." Raht gestured to a set of chairs in the middle of the room, circling a round table.

Sitting at one end while the Tennysons sprang for a couch, almost arguing over which side they wanted first, Raht mentally groaned at how immature these visitors acted at times. Then he scanned the ancient Thep Khufan text until finding an appropriate place to start, "Ah, here it is. Well, put simply, long ago, our society actually was as...young as your Ancient Egypt, that was our first Golden Age. Back then, we worshipped the ancient Gods. Ra, Horus, Osiris, and the rest. But then it changed when the Ectonurites enslaved every planet in the Anur System. We knew not how or why they did it, but, led by Zs'Skayr, they dominated every facet of our society, forcing us to commit to life the way they saw it. They destroyed our temples, erased our murals and hieroglyphs, darkened the skies, and murdered everyone who spoke out against them. We couldn't fight them with our technology of the time, for we knew that unless they were exposed to concentrated light, they would eventually live on through us or some other conduit using their resilient genetic memory. It was what you would call the Dark Ages, though dark in every sense of the word. We took what we could carry and hid it underground like we do, for the day we would be freed."

The Tennysons could imagine what Raht was telling them, and it sent chills down their spines thinking about it.

"It was so bad that even the pharaohs, sons of Ra, were removed from rulership, to be replaced by Zs'Skayr's disciples, often mentally torturing our people to keep them in line. Ectonurites live longer than we do, so you can imagine how horrible that would be."

Ben tried to keep his stomach acid from returning. To be semi-possessed by Ghostfreak is one thing, but for a whole civilization to be enslaved under this kind would be a waking nightmare.

Then Raht switched to the second scroll, "Then one day, for one reason or another, the Ectonurites' rule stopped. Our best theory is that without Zs'Skayr's will, his kind fell into disarray and retreated back to Anur Phaetos, their home world. But that's just a theory. Shortly after this, trade opened up between the other planets, and the Transylians helped us recover by giving us some of the advanced technology they had kept secret until then, as a gesture of goodwill. This way, we could repair our civilization with greater knowledge in case of another disaster. We even built stargates for fast travel between the planets, and our old culture returned over time as well. However, because it had not been practiced in so long, and due to how little we were able to save, our religion is not what it once was, and some people do not even believe in it anymore."

Gwen piped up, "Of course, just like how Egyptians didn't all tell the same myths between towns, or how the Christians removed all the pagan temples when they took over Egypt."

"Quite," the tactician nodded. "This...prophecy surrounding you, Ben, was a simple story told to give us hope," he chuckled, "I am sure no one would have expected the Omnitrix to end up in the hands of a human child."

"Vilgax certainly didn't," Ben chuckled, "You should've seen his face when he found me."

As Raht finished with that scroll and sent the pair back up the tube, he finished, "Well, that's the history we have on the subject. Anything else you wish to know?"

"Yes," Gwen answered, "I'm curious about these cloaks and headgear you guys are sporting while some aren't. Grandpa mentioned that earlier today."

"Oh, that is easy," Raht smiled as he stretched his right arm for one of the lower cells and pulled out a scroll on his own. Opening this one, he showed them a diagram on one portion and explained, "The diagram shown here describes a basic Thep Khufan and their clothing. You see, this clothing is only available to upper class beings, and the color of their cloak and the shape of their headdress is relative to what their rank and occupation is. Most of these are affiliated with the pharaoh, such as Elastamun. I believe this scroll has a legend here...yes," he checked that part of the scroll, and continued, "Such as Dark Red for Archivists, Red for combat, Purple in Administrative work, etc. If I recall correctly, Ja'Kaal used to be in the pharaoh's military regime, who wear blue cloaks, and the pharaoh's vizier shares his headdress."

"Interesting," Gwen answered. "So why do some people not have these?"

"It's a class divide, I'm afraid. Some people simply cannot make enough money to live as we do. One of the amnenties my people own is sarcophagi to sleep in, but lower-class citizens can't afford them."

"That sounds awful," Ben whistled.

"Like how some people are treated on Earth, actually." Gwen lamented.

"Any other topics to discuss?"

"One last thing: how do you know magic?" Gwen reached into her pocket and showed Raht her pilfered spellbook. "I stole this from an evil sorceress on Earth, and since I have it, I can cast any spell in it even though I didn't really train for magic or anything."

Raht leafed through the spellbook with curiosity. Although he had a translator on as well, he couldn't make much sense out of the incantations inside. Handing it back to Gwen, Raht described, "Well, that information is mostly secretive, but let's just say, we learned it from the Gods."

Ben wanted to laugh, but stopped at the last minute, considering it might be offensive.

"I think that will be all, sir," Gwen finished with a bow.

"Well then, I suppose we'd best turn in for the night," Raht nodded as he returned the third scroll. "Tomorrow will be a very important day."

"No kidding," Ben muttered under his breath.

Having to change out of their dirty Earth clothes for simple white tunics reserved for children their age, Ben and Gwen entered the dormitory, surprised to find that instead of conventional beds, the bunks were simple sarcophagi, set at a 45-degree angle for sleeping.

Raht whispered, "Your grandfather is in that one," gesturing to one coffin to the left of two open ones, "I heard he asked to have the two coffins next to him reserved for you. I will be sleeping upstairs with my colleagues," he pointed to a higher floor with more lavishly decorated coffins. As he ascended the stairs to that level, he finished, "Sleep well, my friends. You will need it."

With no more to do, Ben and Gwen softly trod over to their sarchophagi and shut the lids, finding there to be a pillow at one end, and holes in the front to breathe and see out into the room where the eyes and mouth would be, not that there was much to look at with the dim yellow lighting.

Ben and Gwen felt tense about this situation, for this was the first time in their entire lives that they had slept not only outside the Rust Bucket during their summer vacation, but on another planet entirely. These Thep Khufans were friendly and generous, but it still troubled them all the same.

Gwen, after clearing her thoughts, actually managed to get a good night's sleep, dreaming of walking through Ancient Egypt as it was, thousands of years ago. It was beautiful.

Ben, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. In his pod, he tossed and turned, something from the back of his mind coming back to haunt him. He dreamed of standing in the desert terrain of this world, the sky black with thunderclouds like the world outside the Matrix. All around him, mummies were being whipped or mentally abused by the phantom-like Ectonurites. UFOs used death rays to smash stone temples and buildings from above. Disobedient aliens were burned alive, shot with projectiles, or rendered brain-dead by the ghosts. Then he noticed his watch sounding an alarm he'd never heard before. Flashing orange, the faceplate cracked like glass, and out poured the spectral figure of Ghostfreak himself.

"Finally, I am free once more!" His raspy Steven Blum-esque voice screeched. "And now, nothing will stand in my way! Goodbye, Ben Tennyson!"

Ben's entire vision filled with the alien ghost's visage, his body fazing over his until the boy could feel his skin and flesh growing colder and number every second. He tried to scream, but nothing came out, as often happened in nightmares. At the very last second, just when Ben thought he was truly dead, he woke with a jolt, still in his sleeping pod.


	9. The History Lesson

At around 5:30 AM, Ben's coffin opened by itself, bright lights underneath the overhead catwalk shining in his face as a wake-up call. The computer voice pinged on the intercom, "Good morning. Today is the Day of the Moon, eighteenth day of the Lunar Month. The time is oh-five-thirty standard hours. Please report to the mess hall for your rations and duty rosters. Have a pleasant day."

One by one, the resistance and Tennysons rose from their caskets, as strangely morbid as it looked to the humans. As the kids joined their grandfather, he stretched his old arms, then asked, "Morning, grandkids. Have a nice sleep?"

"Yeah, it was great," Gwen confirmed while standing.

Ben took a bit more time standing up, groaning from feeling groggy, "Ugh, I had this horrible dream."

"What happened?" Max asked, out of curiosity as they joined the people in line for the mess hall.

Ben dodged it, the memories too painful, "I'll tell you later."

The crew arrived at the mess hall, this time having to stand in line for their food. Like before, the kids were able to understand what they were eating by associating it with similar dishes from Earth. This meal seemed to be a type of simple omlette. As it happened, Ben and Gwen had wished beyond the shadow of a doubt of having something like this all summer, so they dined ravenously on this meal upon sitting down at their tables.

Once breakfast was over, they had to stand in line before a series of monitors where each crewmember was given a particular schedule of duties on a small printed scroll. Ben looked at his shortly after receiving it: "—[TRANSLATED TO HUMAN LANGUAGE VIA SCRIBE DATA #313AK]-"0615: Exercise – Weights and Cardio. 0700: one-on-one battle training session with elite warrior Undyyne, topside training court. 0845: Briefing."

Gwen's schedule mentioned a similar battle training, but included a confidential note from Raht, "I've spoken with some of my colleagues this morning and they have agreed to let you train your magic abilities with one of our mages. At 0700, go to the topside court and ask for a Khufan named 'Worlock'"

Max's training included a target practice session with a number of weapons, down here in the base.

Overall, it seemed everyone in the base was due for some form of combat exercises, and for good reason.

Following the standard exercise workout, which was surprisingly easy to handle given how simple the tools of the trade were, Neferti came to fetch Ben for his combat training. Escorted by the warrior, Ben and Gwen left the base through the entrance lift, and she showed them across the plaza and behind the sphinx to another street leading southwest. Due south was filled by a massive columned building, a temple, though not nearly as large as the one by Rehk'Set's palace. If anything still remained of Egyptian culture here, that would be where the citizens would go every day. Right now, though, it stood silent and empty. For a moment, Gwen thought it interesting that this ancient culture, not practiced whatsoever on Earth, was still alive here, even if not fully practiced like Raht said last night.

The southwest road threaded through Mos Isis like the north one, flanked by a precession of ornate black obelisks; except instead of the various shops and business structures from the north end and entrance, here seemed to be basic apartments and simple houses, stacked in dark, uniform blocks inlaid with circuit-like decorative patterns. She wondered if those places were any more comfortable than those from Earth, thousands of years back.

The street was filled with people today, all of them from the base, and all of them heading in the same direction, with the Tennysons and Neferti at the front. Finally, near the edge of the city, the street split into a T-shape at a very large building with an open courtyard.

"What's this?" Gwen asked with curiosity.

"This is the city's training center. Ours is smaller, more of a backup, if you will." the warrior mummy explained. "We are all training today, I am sure you know why."

She walked the two cousins into a sand-filled courtyard.

Then Neferti pointed to the courtyard and instructed, "I have been told that the both of you are to train out here. You, Ben, with Undyyne, and you with Worlock."

"Sounds good," but as she checked her tunic, Gwen realized she didn't have a crucial item.

Seeing her concerned reaction, Neferti added, "Do not worry, I had a servant bring your equipment for the task. Why don't you wait for him over there?" She pointed towards the right side of the court.

Out of nowhere, a horn sounded, and over a P.A. system, the whole city echoed with the voice of Rehk'Set; Monitors projected his face in flawless resolution. Neferti and Ben saw that evil visage on a pair of screens attached to the building; They heard him speak, "Listen well, citizens. There are three humans and a renegade scribe in Mos Isis," The Tennysons' faces and Elastamun's flashed by for a few seconds each, "If you do not surrender them in three standard hours, Sehkbet will come and wreak havoc upon your city." The message repeated twice, then the screens went black, soon replaced with the benign sights of peaceful environmental backdrops. Ben half-expected some form of TV show, but it seemed those were absent here. As for the message, the boy felt a chill down his spine, asking, "Was that the pharaoh?"

"Yes, it was. It may comfort you to know, however, that our plan will take effect before his forces can attack this city. Plus, very little of the people in this city care about him. Who would with such oppressive methods?"

"Good point," Ben smirked.

"Even so, you would do best to stay hidden here until you meet Undyyne, just in case."

That gave the boy a thought, and he said, "Hang on a second," then hid behind one of the many columns surrounding the perimeter of the court. Watching to make sure no one was moving in his direction, Ben looked down at his watch, then pondered for a moment. He didn't have any way to disguise his very recognizable face, so he had only one option. No wonder they were keeping him underground. Ben tapped the Omnitrix's start switch and rotated the faceplate to a form he'd tried to use several missions back but never did intentionally. "Please play fair," he begged the thing.

By a stroke of luck, Ben became exactly what he planned to be: His mummy form. It had never been named, but if he couldn't find a better one, "Benmummy" was his backup name.

Neferti was impressed at this, remarking "Oh my, that form looks good on you!" Though her thoughts drifted briefly to Elastamun's even more stylish face and body. She had to talk to him sometime during this mission.

"Thanks, never heard that before," Ben's new deep male voice answered.

Hoping to stay undercover as long as the time limit lasted, Neferti walked Ben into the middle of the sandy courtyard. Nothing was tiled or paved, just one big plot of sand.

Ben chuckled at a thought, "You know, I never got enough time to break in this form back on Earth. That evil mummy was a lot better at using their powers than I ever could."

"Maybe you will get that chance now?"

"I hope so. I ended up tossed around like a rag by one of those wolf things last time."

It so happened that Undyyne approached this area from the building ahead, still wearing that protective suit, but this time with a matching helmet. Ben was amazed about how slim everything looked, knowing that even in a climate like this, a water-needing creature like her would still be able to fight. No human technology could make something that lightweight and durable for the military.

"Ah, good morning, Neferti," she greeted the warrior with a politeness Ben didn't think her capable of having. Her voice was slightly tinny due to a speaker conveying her voice like a diver would use underwater, "Er, who's that with you?"

"Look at his shoulder, and you will know," the female warrior pointed to that area on Ben's body.

Seeing the familiar Omnitrix symbol, Undyyne's confident smile faded again. This time, however, she tried to make the most of it, "Well, Ben, it seems you've gained a head start on me by changing forms early. I suppose we'd best start training now, then."

Ben turned to Neferti and asked, "Before I do this, can't you give me some tips on how to use this…uh, body?"

Neferti could barely stifle a giggle, then advised him, "Just remember: Every part of your body is flexible, don't think of it like the four limbs of a humanoid. Once you know that, it becomes second nature."

"I...guess that makes sense?"

"Well, I will leave you two to your training. See you in one hour and thirty minutes!" the cat warrior finished before jogging into the building, probably where all the heavy activity was.

Undyyne summoned another energy spear and used it to carve a circle in the sand about 5 feet wide. After carving a second of the same diameter where Ben stood, she returned to the center and explained, "Here's the goal: You have to push me out of this circle before I do the same to you. That's simple enough I think even someone like you would understand."

Ben studied the two sand rings, nodded, then answered, "I guess that works, but just so's you know, I'm only in this form until the watch runs out of power. Then it has to recharge again."

"Well then, we'll have to make this first round quick, won't we?" She smiled menacingly. Ben flinched as she raised one hand, then she stopped and added, "And to make this interesting, I'll even turn off my targeting systems for you." The alien fish warrior then tapped a keypad on her arm, entering a code that displayed "Targeting System: DEACTIVATED", before her heads-up display cleared itself of tactical readouts.

Holding that blue spear in her right hand, she raised it and screeched, "Think fast, Thep Khufan!"

Instinctively, Ben ducked, the spear disintegrating as it hit the sand. She summoned another one, this time it flew towards Ben's torso, flying at a speed so fast that it tore a hole in his bandages. It hurt, but quickly regenerated. On a third time, she threw two spears, and he weaved in a snake-like manner that ended up making his torso look like a twisted piece of paper.

Undyyne was growing annoyed by this, and she screamed, "What are you?! Fight back! You try that in the field and some life form will be eating your flesh for lunch by the end!"

Feeling a wave of frustration, Ben tried to focus on what move to use. Suddenly flashing back to when Ghostfreak's Thep Khufan showed up on that farm, Ben focused on his left arm, spun 90 degrees counterclockwise, and flung it in the other direction, knowing where it was going to strike. As he hoped, the momentum from that whip-like attack sent Undyyne flying 5 feet sideways, out of the ring and skidding face-first into the sand. If she didn't have her suit on, her gills would have been clogged.

Rising back to her feet and dusting her suit off, Undyyne laughed, "Haha! That's more like it!"

As she jumped back into her ring, Ben asked, "What's with the attitude, lady? You know I'm just a kid, right?"

"That's the problem right there," She snapped her right finger, and all of a sudden, a dozen spears appeared at once, "Children aren't meant to be soldiers! It's immoral!"

If Ben's form could sweat, lines would be running down his face.

"But, since you have the Omnitrix, I have to improvise...and it bites!" Still holding all those spears in the air, she shouted, "Now, if you're going to defend yourself, be ready for it this time!"

She counted down from five, and this time Ben steeled himself for the oncoming attack. The spears flew when she reached one, all aimed at the boy. This time he combined offense and defense. Trying to think up a way to make sure those spears passed through his body without harming it, he concentrated and loosenend the bandages in his torso so that the spears passed through the gaps. He could feel his body growing larger from that. By sheer luck, one spear happened to catch on his right hand in a way that his tapering fingers grabbed it.

Holding the spear, Ben taunted, "Hey, fish lady! You missed one!" then threw it in the direction of her torso.

Undyyne just dodged, with reflexes so fast he thought they came close to XLR8's. This Ripjaws woman had obviously been trained to fight for a reason. What was she?

Abruptly, the Omnitrix timed out, and Ben was back in his human form within seconds. "Wow, I need to try that one again!" he giggled at that exhilarating experience.

She still scowled at him, shouting like a drill instructor, "If there's one thing that I dislike more than you, it's stories made up about people like you! Why, oh why, would anyone think 'whoever owns the Omnitrix is immediately a god'? Just some divine figure who knows combat by heart? Savior, my foot!"

"That has nothing to do with me! People were trying to kill me for this thing!" Ben protested, "Geez, you sound like Vilgax, and I faced off against that guy, TWICE!"

That struck a chord with her, and her expression changed for a moment, "Oh, really? I've been aching to meet him in battle! How did you fare?"

"Last I saw him, my family and I threw him into the Null Void. I almost gave him this watch too, until my cousin got it back."

Undyne's mouth twitched, her sharp teeth grinding together, then she breathed deeply to calm down, knowing that too much anger would burn someone out, "Listen, if you've managed to stop people from ripping that thing off your arm, multiple times, then maybe I am judging you too hard. Maybe you're worth more than just a child with those other forms of yours." Then her tone rose again, "But that doesn't mean I'm through with you yet! If you wanna save the world, you're gonna have to learn how to fight like a real warrior, no matter what form you're in!"

Ben looked at his watch, noticing it was still red. "Well," he sighed, "Looks like it's just me until this thing recharges."

Undyyne stepped closer to the boy, then looked up at a vertical sundial on the temple wall, shaped like the sun held aloft by the head of Horus. It was around 0750. She thought for a moment, then sighed, "Fine, we'll take a fifteen-minute break. After that, let's train in a different environment."

"Like what?"

She tapped her water-filled helmet, "What's say you and me face off in a more...natural location?" Then she turned and pointed to a gate behind her in the colonnade surrounding the courtyard, "Through there, that's where the swimming pool is. Freshwater, too."

Ben knew what that meant, then a smile crossed his face, realizing he'd barely used the form she was thinking of, then he pumped his left fist and shouted, "You're on!"


	10. Training from Hell

Far away at the palace, in a private room, a Transylian sat at a table next to the throne, smaller than the one in the grand hall, with a set of electrodes strapped to her forehead. Currently moving her hands over a flat oblong slab of dark plastic, she used this device to control a hovering Horus drone, the 'trodes sending her the panoramic visual feed. In this case, she used it to observe Mos Isis from a half-mile away, with its eye-like camera inside the ever-familiar Wadjet design. This video signal was relayed to a large screen that the pharaoh sat in front of, watching with the intent of a hunter.

Next to the pharaoh's chair on a side table was a small quantum transceiver, an advanced alien version of a radio. It was on, but the channel was silent. Rehk'Set had been listening for hours, hoping for someone to believe his ultimatum and bring the humans here.

The drone hovered silently, as vigilant as its likeness in the god itself, scanning the city back and forth with its long-range sensors. For hours today, like the radio, nothing more than the idle activity of people moving about stirred in there.

Early in the morning, Rehk'Set had thought it would be easy to sway the minds of the citizens. Usually his dominion worked in other villages or towns, like Kranak, or Al'Wadjet, even as far as Maru at the delta; But not this place. The Golden Guard, he believed, had poisoned the people with their dissent, so that he couldn't control them from afar. His threat was due to be carried out soon, but he wondered if the Guard had enough defensive power to protect the city.

At times he wanted to get the Transylians to build him a rail gun and bomb the whole place from low orbit, that would be nice, clean, and get things done in one stroke. But in the back of his head, he knew doing something so brash, so self-centered would make him just like the very Ectonurites these people had managed to escape from in less 30 earth years. Why kill what was already just starting to flourish? He liked this progress, loved to watch this culture evolve into his image, but lately the image was not his, it was the rebels'.

"Switch to drone Beta-29," the pharaoh ordered.

Using one hand, she tapped a small keypad next to the deck, bringing up a three-dimensional menu to select one of the drones from. Typing in that model number, the cube of icons spun until the selected one was highlighted in the second row, 29th sector. Then the feed cut back in, this time in a close-up view of his transhuman slaves mining corrodium.

"Good, Jek'yll," he approved with a sinister smile.

This Transylian felt sick to her stomach looking at this scene. These mummies worked like robots, using pick axes, drills and explosives to extract the glowing rocks from the deep quarry and loading them into hover freighters for shipment to a refinery. Not all of them worked at the speed or efficiency the foreman wanted, and those who were too slow were whipped. Much like human slaves, their bandages were pockmarked with scars from those strikes.

She wanted to protest this cruel method, though knew the pharaoh would likely have her sent to the dungeon for disobedience. She didn't know that those slaves were humans, but the idea of slave labor alone contradicted a society that was meant to be peaceful. The Thep Khufans had already integrated a portion of their technology into this planet to recover from the war, basically bringing an industrial revolution; thus, why not cut this crude method out and use machines to do this laborious work? Then she knew that that would violate 'ancient traditions', as he often lectured the population time and again.

The drone scanned the scene, identifying the color, value, mass, and radiation levels of the various corrodium deposits. In the background, the aforementioned pyramid was almost complete, only missing the pyramidion cap. The sun blazed down in the late morning sky, a readout on one side displaying that it was at a high temperature that would have equated to 137 degrees Fahrenheit, lethal for humans.

Rehk'Set's anger grew at the disturbances to his reign these past few days. He was in charge, sure; As the son of Ra, it was your will that ensured Ma'at. But he felt that his uncle Rho'Tep had ruled all wrong. Whoever controlled the crown controlled this planet, that was how he thought monarchy would be.

Still, he hadn't lied to Valensen about a cure having been developed; In fact, thirty-six vials were ready in his laboratories to be sent out. Yet, he wouldn't give the order to deploy them. Because his vizier had betrayed him and released someone he thought would never return to this planet. Now he decided Valensen's actions had doomed the latest generation of Thep Khufans. Watching his former adviser burned to a crisp on CCTV was poetically beautiful; it was this lust for destruction inside him. He wanted to see people suffer, just as much as he liked seeing them thrive.

Perhaps it stemmed from how traumatized he'd been from childhood. When you live to see another race turn your friends and family into their puppets of bandages, while your uncle Rho'Tep hid you away, why wouldn't you hate the people who did that to you? But as he grew older, his hatred becoming a morbid fascination, he knew Ectonurites were more like viruses in their own right, given that even if you killed one, their remnants would contain every bit of the whole, seeking out something to possess so that they would never truly die. But it was that factor of invulnerability that made him curious; he could see it in how Zs'Skayr controlled the entire Anur system: His own abilities and resources proved that it would be impossible to stop his rule. A rule that would never end, with no one that could oppose him, no way to be killed by your enemies, nothing that could defeat him. As he grew older, Rehk'Set wanted that kind of power more than anything. He could rule forever!

But the reality sunk in not long after he took the throne, for the people were beginning to resist his rule, and that angered him. So he needed an alternative, something else to rule. Then Elastamun's research mission on Earth gave him the target he needed: Human beings. He couldn't do it on Earth itself because there already were people of power all over the planet, so he settled for the subtler approach. It was the perfect plot: Take people from another world that shared similarities to this one, and change them so no one would know something was amiss. If the natives would not bow to his will, then these would.

Remembering one last thing, he commanded, "Play back footage from yesterday morning."

"Yes, sir."

The menu cube shifted to another one, this time highlighting several squares its first row. Then it cut to a recording close to the palace, across from the temple, the white obelisk in the center reflecting the afternoon sun. After a few minutes passed, he could immediately see the firefight between the two guards he sent, the Tennysons and Elastamun.

"Zoom in on the temple."

And the drone did, magnifying the image. The resolution was still just as crisp as the original, using an imaging technology humans could only dream of. Rehk'Set noticed Diamondhead skewering one of the guards with crystals bursting from the ground.

Just after he watched the alien decapitate the guard and throw his head into the sand, the red flash gave way to Ben's figure amid the bandages.

"Check his left arm, there's something on it," the pharaoh commanded.

The footage zoomed in on that spot, frozen on a smeared frame where his arm moved backwards. "Scan it."

Another program opened, checking for any anomalies on the arm. In seconds, the program showed a data window reading, "MATCH: Omnitrix transformation device. ORIGIN: [CLASSIFIED]."

"Move onto that human's face," he ordered. "Cross-reference it with all the data we have on humans."

The video zoomed out then back in, this time on his face, and a separate program opened, locating files on human faces and their identity records. Unbeknownst to Elastamun, the pharaoh had sent probes to other locations on Earth using their stargates, and used them to cover more ground than the scribe ever could, even hacking into computer databases if necessary. The system stopped when it resulted in a match: "Tennyson, Benjamin. 2816 McDuffie Lane, Bellwood, Pennsylvania. Nationality: USA. Age: 10 years. Height: 4'5". Weight: 76 lbs. Criminal History: None. Education: Bellwood elementary, 4th grade."

"Show me the latest news related to this boy."

Using the VR deck, she drifted through the stream of files and came up with several television, satellite and aircraft recordings, one discussing him being framed by another human that handled the same powers in a more unstable manner, another in which the boy's alien forms challenged Vilgax near Mount Rushmore, a satellite video detailing one of the warlord's robots launched to Earth not long after the Omnitrix's initial deployment to the planet, and most recently, Elastamun's own planetside footage of Zs'Skayr's corrodium barrier, thwarted once again by the Tennysons before their re-entry.

"I have seen enough. Jack out, Jek'yll," Rehk'Set ordered.

The screen went dark when she turned the deck off, the transylian unhooking the 'trodes from her forehead as she stood up.

"Anything else, my lord?" She inquired with dignity.

"Return to your post at the laboratories. My new plan is almost complete."

"Yes, great one."

After she left, he muttered to a guard standing next to the throne, "This Ben Tennyson is not as weak as he seems. We will have to take extra precautions."

"Yes sir, I will bring the Captain of the Guard."

"Good, you may go," Rehk'Set nodded.

As the guard walked out of the room, his staff clinking with every step, the pharaoh knew that Zs'Skayr must be alive somewhere on Earth. But why did he go there? Was that what stopped the war? Curiosity? Or something about the watch?

Once the boy was brought to him, answers would be in the Pharaoh's reach. He just hoped that his contact in the city could keep the tables on his side. That was all that mattered. Whatever happened, this world was his, and would be until his death.


	11. The Eyes of Madness

Just before Ben's training began, Gwen happened to meet Worlock, a Thep Khufan whose arrangement of black bandages almost resembled a beard in design, strangely enough. His posture was not hunched, but upright, almost slightly intimidating. He almost reminded her of an old man from an anime who would train the main character in martial arts.

"Greetings, Gwen Tennyson," he bowed to the girl. "I hear you are already versed in magic, yes?"

As if timed, a Loboan servant in a gray robe appeared, holding Gwen's spellbook on a tray. "Your equipment, mistress?" He asked.

"Thank you," Gwen smiled as she accepted the book. Turning to Worlock, she explained, "I use this to control magic, sir." Checking the pages, Gwen figured he might not be able to read the text inside like she could. "Um, it works using spells in a certain language. I'm not sure if you know it."

"The language is not what matters, young one," Worlock explained, "It is the energy source that drives magic. It penetrates all matter, but only the sharpest and most enlightened of minds can control it. There are many ways; I have mine as you do yours," he paused, brandishing a staff and using his own elasticity to stretch out and draw a line between the two people, followed by a second behind him, and a third behind Gwen. Snapping it back, he challenged, "So, try and use yours to push me behind the farthest line!"

Consulting a spell she'd used multiple times to the point of memorization, Gwen held out the book and shouted, "Elota Objectia!" and a blast of blue energy flew from her hands and struck Worlock in the chest in a way that pushed him over the back line.

"Impressive," he stated while jumping back to his feet, "But now it is my turn!"

He shouted words that manifested as glowing green hieroglyphs, which actually translated as "Unleash the desert wind!" And true to word, Gwen found herself blasted by a tiny cyclone of wind, sand blown all over her clothes in the process as she fell backwards over her line.

He laughed, "Well, now that you know that we are not so different in combat magic, try defending yourself this time!"

The training exercise continued back and forth, each time with Gwen gaining experience in using her spells more quickly and efficiently, almost like the skill levels in a role-playing game, she thought.

Worlock impressed her with how powerful and fast he seemed to be with his own Egyptian magic. 'from the gods', Raht had said. She needed to look into that sometime.

During the break, Gwen asked the wizened Thep Khufan, "Wow, that's some skill you have, sir! Where did you learn from?"

"I cannot tell you exactly," he answered, "But it was a member of a special clan of magicians loyal to the throne. Long before pharaoh Rehk'Set took over. That clan is all but dead now, because of the Ectonurites."

"Interesting. Since we're all gearing up to fight that pharaoh, so I hear, maybe you could join us?"

"Oh, I will, child; do not worry. After all, why do you think I was asked to train you?" He snickered.

Down in the base, Max had been practicing at a long-distance range about 10 feet in length. Not as practical as a military range, but it served its purpose.

Max had been testing a number of weapons, but found a particular liking to a shotgun that fired balls of plasma. It made him think of a compact version of the bulky plasma cannon his grandson used to take down Vilgax.

Ja'Kaal had been occupied with firing arrows, tipped with a substance that made them ignite when fired, like the flaming arrows of medieval sieges. Marnor, likewise, was operating a heavy-looking grenade launcher, his strength augmented by the metal arm.

"Arrows and shotguns, never before have I seen such a strange mix," Max commented while switching plasma clips.

"Unlike your planet, we care about our past traditions, regardless of the innovation of today. Only fair to integrate both at once, is it not?" Ja'Kaal smirked while reaching for another arrow.

"I...see your point," the elderly human shrugged while re-aiming at a new target, the old ones having been replaced via robot arms.

"You are not a bad shot yourself," Marnor commented. "Where did you learn how to handle a firearm?"

"Long story short, I had a job that handled alien relations on Earth. Some were good, some were bad," Max described.

"Interesting," the heavy fighter remarked before returning to his target practice.

Following Ben's break, the boy followed Undyyne's directions to the pool area of the training center. He noticed quickly that while two conventional pools were occupied by a few swimmers, a larger, more natural pool, about the size of an Olympic type, was empty. Undyyne was waiting at the edge, completely bare. Fortunately, the telltale half-tail Ripjaws used when on land covering her groin hid anything sensitive.

"Hi, Undyyne, how's the air going for you?" Ben giggled.

She wanted to yell at the boy for that, but instead she cleared her throat and responded, "Cooler than the outside, but not by much. I wear that suit more for this climate than my own body, if you were wondering."

"Really? I can't last five minutes on land without water when I'm Ripjaws!"

"Maybe that's because you're really young. As we get older, we need water less and less," she chuckled, "Who knows, when you're older you might gain that same perk? If you don't get yourself killed in battle first."

Ben groaned, "You really think I'm that weak?" then, running up to a dividing wall between the natural pool and the others, he reached for the watch. Turning the faceplate to the form he wanted, Undyyne watched with interest as the human slowly transformed into his own Pisciss Volann persona. "Think again, dead-eye!" His raspy voice snarled.

"Oh, NOW we're talking!" Undyyne laughed, feeling the thrill of a challenge just before Ben dived into the water, quickly followed by her.

Down here, almost immediately, the two Pisciss Volanns sparred at each other with their claws, their legs fused into a tail for better movement. Not since that encounter with the so-called 'Yenaldooshi' werewolf had Ben directly fought against an alien that matched one of his own forms. Yet, because of the reason for it, he actually enjoyed doing it this time. Ben's heroic ego filled him with determination to beat her in some way, down here in the clean fresh water that no terrestrial swimming pool would have.

Undyyne was also having a blast with this special training stage. Instead of battling a weak, vulnerable human being, now she was up against something of her own size and species. All that mattered then was to see how tough her opponent actually was. Sure, in this case it was only temporary, but Undyyne wanted to savor this moment for as long as she could.

The warrior reared back and slammed Ripjaws into a wall, holding him there with her raw strength. He reached out, grabbed Undyyne by the arms, and threw her across to the far side of the pool. They repeated at this for some time, slashing, swimming, and trying to outdo each other, until finally the Omnitrix timed out once again, forcing both of them to come up for air.

It so happened that time ran out just minutes before the time on the schedule, and Neferti happened to be waiting by the pool, notably battered from her own melee training.

"Well, friends, having fun?" She teased.

"You bet, that was awesome!" Ben agreed, noticing his robe was gone.

"Well, you'd best get dressed. The briefing starts in a few minutes."

Neferti brought the newly clothed kids and Undyyne back into the base. Gwen thought she heard footsteps echoing in the hall, and thought the security system would pick up something, but it didn't. The door opened without incident.

"So, how was your training, Gwen?" She asked with curiosity.

"Brutal, but I actually had fun with it," Gwen answered.

Fatigued from the brutal training session, Ben stopped for a shower in one of the restrooms inside the training area, though it took some time to understand the controls – and he had to avert his gaze from other aliens in the public area with him.

Drying off using a sliding torus that effortlessly bathed his skin with warm air, evaporating the water in one motion, Ben dressed back into his old, newly cleaned clothes and made for the briefing room, which had already been packed with pretty much everyone else in the base. His cousin and grandfather had also arrived before him.

"Ah, Ben. Good, you're just in time," Ja'Kaal smiled.

"Actually, sir, he has missed seven minutes-" Raht started, but Ja'Kaal hushed him.

Ben took his seat just as the lights dimmed and the projector flared back to life. This time, it showed a map of the entire stretch of land. With a baton, Raht pointed to the city in the south. "Mos Isis is here, as you can see, and due to the great distance and climate, the only way to the pharaoh's sanctum is by hovercraft. The river passes by both locations, but boat travel isn't fast enough for this mission."

"Furthermore," Ja'Kaal continued as he tapped it twice, enlarging the image of the palace and showing red icons surrounding it, "Our scouts reported the pharaoh having built a blockade around his palace several hours ago." He tapped a button on the remote, showing images taken with long-range military cameras, probably using drones.

Raht elaborated, "So far we've been attempting to determine a weakness in this blockade, but his army seems to have been prepared for multiple combat scenarios."

"Like what, sir?" Max asked.

Ja'Kaal flipped to another image, taken closer to the palace, but grainy with pixels, as if it was taken just after someone shot the camera. "From the looks of these troops outside the palace, they appear to have erected a force shield around the perimeter, and dispatched quite muscular troops, even a few Petrosapiens."

Ben's eyebrows twitched hearing that alien name, knowing he had that in his watch.

"Worse, we can also see snipers on the roof with plasma carbines, and what appears to be robed Thep Khufan mages."

"In other words, they've prepared for everything possible?" Ben asked, almost defeated.

"Everything except your watch, my friend." Ja'Kaal smirked.

"What do you mean?" the boy queried.

"We had said yesterday that the Omnitrix gives us the means to defeat the pharaoh," Raht declared. "And the reason behind that is this: Neither Pharaoh Rehk'Set nor his guards can predict which alien you will use, which means it is literally impossible for the troops to defend against all of the aliens in your device."

"In other words, Ben," Gwen stated, "You're the resistance's wild card."

"I like the sound of that," Ben smiled as he leaned back in his chair.

"So what's the plan of attack?" Undyyne asked, eager for a fight.

Ja'Kaal tapped the remote again, flipping back to the holo-map, and hit another button to play a simulated combat scenario, "Using the data gathered from yesterday's events, some of it provided by scribe Elastamun, we have compiled a sneak attack plan."

Raht explained, "We will all fly together in every vehicle we have, but under cloaking devices to evade detection," he continued as icons of ships flew across the simulated desert.

"Then, using my flagship," Ja'Kaal continued, "Ben and two troops will go down to quietly penetrate the blockade and cripple it from within. Once that is done, we will all uncloak and attack."

"What about the pharaoh himself?" Elastamun asked.

"We will have to corner him. The palace is cavernous and labyrinthian," Ja'Kaal reminded him.

"In addition," Raht explained, "we will send in a squad to search the palace for any sort of antidote to the disease. Then, should we find it, we'll bring it aboard one of our crafts to distribute it via the atmosphere."

"And that'll cure the dying infants?" Elastamun inquired.

"We hope, nothing is certain at this point," Ja'Kaal pointed this out, "We are still missing information on how this sickness affected them in the first place, or why humans somehow keep them from dying."

Neferti spoke up, "I just want my family to survive."

"Now, any further questions?"

Max asked for one final detail, "If you don't mind, have you worked out how to get us back to Earth after this?"

Elastamun chuckled, "That is easy! The same way I brought you here: Through the stargate below the temple. I would wager that the pharaoh did not know it was tuned to your planet after all this time."

All of a sudden the projector started buzzing an alert. Tapping the remote again, Ja'Kaal noticed a huge blob sliding towards the river. A neon green line extended from the amorphous shape, ending in a text cube displaying an analysis of what it was.

The P.A. computer dictated, "WARNING: High wind patterns detected from west, Class-three sandstorm is imminent."

"Blast," Ja'Kaal grumbled. Clearing his throat, he turned around and explained, "All right, slight change in plans: We will have to wait for this sandstorm to pass, otherwise flying at this hour would likely be lethal. I will alert you all when the weather is safe. In the meantime, you may do what you wish."

Ben and Gwen were happy to hear that, both worn out from hours of intensive training.

Following the briefing, Ben stopped by the library. Grandpa Max was there, talking with Raht.

The green-hatted officer turned and noticed the boy, "Yes, Ben, what is it?"

"I...I wanted to tell you something. Both of you," he muttered as he walked towards the two men.

"Whaddaya want to tell us?" his grandpa cheerfully asked.

"I'm not sure if you're the right person to talk to about this, but..."

"Well, what, Ben? You can tell either of us anything," Raht tried to assure him.

"Okay," Ben took a deep breath and admitted, "I had a nightmare last night. A bad dream."

"Again? How bad was it?" Max wondered. He turned to Raht and explained, "Time to time he gets these dreams after fighting crime, and sometimes they actually happen in real life."

"After you told that story of how you guys were controlled by the Ec...Ecto...um, ghost aliens, I dreamed I was there when everything went bad, and then..." he stammered, trying to find the right words, "Their leader – what we call 'Ghostfreak' burst out of my watch and tried to take over my body. And the worst part is, he really is still in there," Ben gestured to the Omnitrix in a frantic, pained voice. Tears were beginning to well up in his eyes. "We killed him, but it picked up his DNA at the last moment, just before Elastamun found us in Egypt."

"But why would he want your body in particular?" Raht asked with curiosity.

"He said he wants to be 'whole' again, and he needs my body to do that. Probably because right now he's just a sample. A living, thinking sample."

"My goodness, that is very bad news," Raht realized, "Ja'Kaal should have taken this matter more seriously!"

"What're you going to do, Ben?" his grandpa asked, trying to rationalize this.

"I don't know. I'm just...scared," Ben sighed, "And...there's something else to this, Raht."

"What would that be?" the tactician queried.

"This watch isn't as perfect of a weapon as Ja'Kaal thinks it is," he tapped the faceplate again, the device still idle. "There's a glitch or bug or...I don't know, an AI that sometimes changes out whatever form I wanted to have, against my will. What if on my next chance to use this, I'd turn into Ghostfreak? That actually happened a few times, and once, that's how he broke free."

Raht could feel a horrible thought coming, but Ben answered before he could say it.

The boy bowed his head, shuffled his feet a little, and rambled, "Maybe this is something the pharaoh wants? Or maybe the god Set? I don't know why, but it feels like that during this battle of ours, by some random chance or someone's will, I'll turn into this...monster, and I might not come back again," A realization hit him, "I...He might use me to enslave you all over again!" Ben truly started crying now. "I'm not your savior, I'm the angel of death. Like Unicron, Galactus, Ego, whatever those evil cosmic forces are, one of them's in my watch, waiting to body-snatch me!"

"Don't say that, Ben!" Grandpa Max pleased. "We'll get through this, whatever it takes! Come here," Ben stepped over to his grandfather who embraced him with a warm, comforting hug.

Even without a visible mouth, Raht smiled at seeing how much this human cared for his grandson, then he suggested a secondary plan to the mission, "Listen, I'll talk to Ja'Kaal; I'll take Gwen and bring her to the temple with me. Maybe there we can find some answers as to what's happening here and why this situation is affecting all three of you so much. The Gods may have been diminished from our culture, but belief is one thing no selfish being can truly destroy."

"Thanks, that's very kind of you," Max approved of that plan.

The base's computer beeped on the intercom again, "Attention: Weather patterns settling. Estimated time to safe levels: twenty standard minutes."

As Raht walked toward the door, he cautioned, "You'd best ready yourselves for the launch, everyone will be flying today." They noticed Raht holding one gauntlet in front of his face, but the door shut before they could see what he was doing with it.

"Well, you heard the man," Max asserted himself. "Feeling any better?"

"Yeah, thanks, Grandpa," Ben nodded while holding Max's hand as they stepped out of the library.

"I know how you feel, Ben; I really do," his grandpa tried to assure the boy, "We've been through all this in just a day, it's normal for this much...action to rattle a guy. But trust me, everything's gonna be all right in the end. And besides, look at the bright side: Now we've got friends fighting this battle with us!"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Ben nodded, still sniffling from his crying fit.


	12. The Mission Briefing

Rehk'Set watched his viewscreen with glee as the sandstorm blew over Mos Isis and everything around it. His personal mage, Skaraab, had called upon the spirit of the lion goddess Sekhmet to conduct this powerful phenomenon, and had kept it in motion for the next twenty minutes. This would have to force out any resistance, and would compel them to finally bow to him. Or so the pharaoh hoped.

As time went on, and the storm cleared, nothing happened. Even with checking the various cameras inside the city, apart from leftover sand in the streets and buildings, everything seemed normal. This was not what he wanted to see.

Now more than ever, he was counting on Ilais, and felt confident that nothing could break through his troops or the barrier. He had had his scientists bring this device here and left it under his own personal protection in case of an actual break-in.

One way or another, the people would eventually surrender.

When Ben and Max entered the launch bay, several gleaming hovercrafts were parked on a marked path on the floor in a line, waiting for their turn to move onto a turntable leading to a launch ramp somewhere above. First in line was the most impressive vehicle the Tennysons had ever seen. It was constructed of a metal that resembled gold, but painted in striped patterns of blue and red that made it resemble a wheel-less dragster crossed with an Egyptian chariot. Gun barrels and large headlights peeked from the tapering recessed sides, reaching from the front of the cockpit to the thin, pointed bow, which was capped with a snake-shaped battering ram. The cockpit was protected by a bulletproof, reflective, one-way glass canopy. Two long, thin thruster turbines were tucked under a large spoiler painted with a ceremonial feathered wing pattern. The whole thing screamed Ancient Egypt, the ideal fantasy type seen in movies, especially the type Ben saw in that cartoon.

"A beauty, isn't it?" Raht asked, standing next to the back of the vehicle. "This speeder is Ja'Kaal's flagship; Designed it myself, weapons and all. I call it the Hot-Ra."

"You make vehicles?" Max asked with intrigue.

"Oh, just you wait," Ja'Kaal chuckled, "We do more than that, you'll see soon enough."

Gwen, now back in her old clothes, was being escorted to another ship by Raht, making Max ask, "Where are you going? The temple?"

"Yes, we won't be long," Raht confirmed.

Ben took a long look at his cousin and asked her, "You gonna be okay without us? It'll feel kinda lonely without your help."

Gwen busted a gut hearing this, "Wait, YOU? Lonely without me? Are you serious?! Wow, until now I was beginning to think I don't exist around here!"

"Yeah, well, I've been through a lot on my own today. Really made me think," Ben sighed, "What're you actually going to do over at that temple, anyway?"

"If Mr. green-hat is right, somehow we're going to meet the Egyptian Gods. Seriously!"

"Good luck with that," Ben shrugged.

"Don't get yourself hurt out there, Gwen," Max warned.

"I won't, we'll be fine," the girl assured him. "Besides, now I've got an alien protecting me!" she started giggling.

Raht cleared his throat, asking in his ever-stiff voice, "Gwen, would you please hurry?"

"Yes, I'll be right there, sir," the redhead answered whilst turning in his direction. Turning back one more time, she took a deep breath then finished, "Take care of yourself, Ben. Everyone's counting on you, you know that?" She held his right hand and shook it.

"Yeah, I know," Ben solemnly nodded.

"Well...Bye, then. We'll find you as soon as this is over," she finished with what sounded like a heavy heart as she rejoined Raht at his ship, a slim hovercraft shaped like a ceremonial boat.

Undyyne happened to walk in, leading a group of alien soldiers. Ben noticed that her suit had been fitted with a stylish type of black armor, probably appropriate with an upcoming battle like this.

"Wow, Undyyne, you look good," Ben flattered her.

"Thanks, kid," she smirked, flexing bits of it whilst checking to make sure her belt and pistol were secure. "I'll be flying gunner for the Starglider, over there," she pointed to a black, streamlined hovercraft behind three others. "Guess we'll see if all that training we did pays off, huh?"

"I sure hope so," Ben agreed.

"We are all in this together," Ja'Kaal declared.

Before she left, Ben held out his right fist and asked, "Here, pound this fist with yours," realizing how strange that actually sounded.

But Undyyne got the message, and with this 'brofist', she sounded off, "See you on the ground, Ben!" before hopping into her ship.

Ben found his hand sore from how rigid her armored fingers felt when she did that.

Ja'Kaal opened the canopy of his ship with a scarab-shaped remote, and the tapering sides of the chassis made it easy to board. One by one, the elite Golden Guard, Elastamun, and the Tennysons piled into the craft. Ja'Kaal climbed into the pilot seat at the front row while Marnor manned the gunner's console. Ben and Max sat side-by side behind them, Neferti and Elastamun at the back row behind the Tennysons. Strapping on their seat belts as the canopy locked back into place, this crew was ready to rock and roll. Ja'Kaal started the engine and revved onto the turntable. It rose and turned until meeting with a downward-sloping ramp. He jammed the throttle forward and the ship lurched down like on a roller coaster ride, activating the cloaking device as it gained enough speed to launch into the sky with the upward slope at the bottom, where it opened through the mouth of the sphinx their base was under.

Undyyne heard something hitting against metal as she was boarding her craft, but couldn't tell under the cacophony of movement. One by one, the other ships followed, forming into a precise flight formation no one on the ground could see.

Ja'Kaal saw the other ships on the craft's radar, noting that one of them had flown away from the rest of the fleet, likely Raht's ship, and called in over the radio, "All craft, report in."

Voices buzzed in, confirming that other peoples' ships were airborne and ready.

Below, the land zoomed by faster than the stolen ship did, he felt like this thing packed the horsepower of a fighter jet. Out the left side of the canopy was nothing but more of the desert, with some distant buildings on the horizon, while that Nile-like river threaded parallel to their flight path on the right. Of course, he still guessed that there were ships flying beside and behind this one. The technology behind their cloaking devices was flawless – nary a seam, shadow, or glint showed even the slightest hint that something was there. No wonder they didn't see Elastamun right away when they crash-landed.

"Palace is 10 miles and closing," Marnor reported.

"Still feeling anxious, Ben?" Grandpa Max asked.

"Not as much, I'm feeling pretty good, actually," Ben smiled contentedly, "In fact, I'm starting to get what Gwen was trying to say last mission: Teamwork is the best solution."

"That's very good, son," Max affirmed, patting Ben on the shoulder. "I'm glad you understand it's not all about the one hero, but the hero and his teammates combined."

Elastamun, feeling Neferti's bandages curling around his again, asked her, "Neferti, are you trying to tell me something?"

"What?" the warrior hesitated, having prepared for this but still shy, "Well, I...I think you're cute. I like the design of your head, and that red cloak really goes well with your blue eyes."

"Oh, I see. But...how could you like me? I'm just a scribe who spent fifteen years in solitude." But in his thoughts, he thought her cat-head was artistically beautiful, too.

"I like you for who you are, not your profession. I have never worn the cloak of monarchy, I just wear red because it keeps my...bandages out of danger."

"Well then...I am open for anything you want. It has been so long, I have forgotten what it is like to truly know any other Thep Khufan besides my master. Whatever you have in mind, I will consider it."

"After this mission, you will be the first thing on my mind, I promise you that."

Elastamun remembered a factoid from human history, and mentioned, "Did you know that humans cared more about females in ancient Egypt than most later cultures did? Greeks and Romans could not grasp this concept."

"That is interesting. When I was younger, my mother could not be allowed to operate our chariot."

Max looked toward the east for a long time, watching the hundreds of mummies down there, building things, driven by whips. He could tell that, unlike the people in the city or this ship, those were humans.

Not moving, he sighed, "Those poor people down there, I can't believe that pharaoh would do something like this."

Elastamun agreed, "I know, it was bad enough that the pharaohs of your history used slaves of other races, but this...this is unthinkable," he paused, then recalled another fact, "It actually reminds me of a story from that time, in what humans call 'the holy bible'."

"Yeah? Which one?" Max asked with intent, Ben not really listening.

"The one where the human Moh-ses called upon his god Yahweh, to force his brother pharaoh to release the slaves that belonged to his race. It took diseases, starvation, pestilence, fires, even the deaths of children to make him do so."

Neferti shivered in her seat, unnerved at that description.

Then the scribe pondered, "Therefore, I just now asked myself: If it took that much power to defeat a human pharaoh, what chance do we have to do the same to ours?"

Ben looked down at his watch again, knowing what was at stake. Then he took a shot in the dark and suggested, "Maybe we need your gods to get us out of this, also."

Ja'Kaal heard this, and reminded him, "Even with what limited information we have, we all know that the gods do not intervene unless Ma'at itself is in danger."

"I don't know," Elastamun "The pharaoh is drunk with his own power. I would say he is a threat to Ma'at. Rather ironic considering what his role is meant to be."

"Maybe so, but we will have to keep the tide in our favor in the meantime," the commander finished.

"I hope Gwen's all right," Ben speculated.

Raht had discreetly flown Gwen in a southeastern vector from the city.

"Where are we going? I thought the temple was back there," Gwen pointed out the window.

"That temple is not the one we need. I know of one of the most sacred religious sites on this planet, and that is this site, in the river itself. Look," he stretched one finger towards the windshield and Gwen immediately noticed.

She could see an obelisk marking the island like a flagpole. It rose so high it almost reminded her of a radio tower. Quite fitting if that was the case, considering she remembered some fiction novels speaking of ghosts communicating through radio waves, or structures like this being used as a link to the heavens. The temple itself seemed to be embedded in its base, almost as if one could go in and climb to the top, even though this had no windows, unlike the Washington Monument. Around the island, to her surprise, strange papyrus-like plants seemed to flourish. The whole area looked like an oasis in this Tattooine-esque planet.

"I can see why," Gwen just said.

Slowly, Raht decreased the ship's speed and dipped ever so gently, like how a passenger jet would land, until finally it came to a stop right at the western shore of the island.

Hitting the canopy switch and setting the craft to a low power level to keep it hovering just above the water, but not enough to drive off in, Raht jumped out of the hovercraft, quickly followed by the girl.

"The pharaoh may have the largest of the temples, but it is not the most sacred," he explained, "This was here before him, before Rho'tep. Before my entire generation existed. I think it is one of the few holy places that survived even the Ectonurites."

"Whoa," was all she could say.

As they climbed ancient stone steps, Gwen could see what he meant by how old this place was. Where Mos Isis was filled with dark, futuristic industry and architecture that still retained the old aesthetics, this place looked as if it had been taken from Earth when Egypt was new and dropped here. The entire structure was made of mud blocks and limestone, splattered brown in places by sandstorms and bleached at the base by shifting tides. Only the obelisk remained untouched, but that sent the girl's mind reeling. If something this old could still shine like new, just how powerful was this particular temple? She knew there was only one way to find out.

The inside of the building was quiet and still. She almost sensed that no one had come here for years.

Curious, she stepped close to the hatted mummy and asked him, "You said the religion isn't always practiced. How come?"

"That, I am afraid to say, we do not know. Though I sense our so-called pharaoh may have something to do with it."

"Who is he, anyway? You didn't talk about him much."

"I cannot speak his name in the presence of Ra, but we do know this: His duty to the gods has gone to his head, which is likely why he enslaved your people. He wants power over everything, frighteningly like Zs'Skayr, actually."

Gwen shuddered, then she asked, "So what do we do now?"

"Follow me."

Although none of the torches or incense bowls were lit, the near-noon sun lit the temple end to end. Small sphinxes flanked the pathway they'd been walking, massive cylindrical columns holding up the massive ceiling, all of them carved and painted with hieroglyphs and murals of the gods and pharaohs of centuries past interacting with each other.

Statues of various gods stood out between the columns. Isis, Thoth, Sekhmet, Wadjet, Sobek, and the rest, all of them at various symmetrical intervals between the columns, arranged with unthinkable precision around the square temple, as if they connected its corners and sides to the center in perfect straight and diagonal lines. Everything here had been designed with a craftsmanship Gwen thought even human Egyptians couldn't muster. Now she suspected that maybe these aliens truly had developed this culture before humans. But then came the question: How did humans get these beliefs?

At the very center was an altar, flanked between the gods Osiris and Anubis, with the head of Ra staring out above all three of them, carved arms holding an orb in each hand, the morning and evening star.

Raht told Gwen to be quiet while they walked. As they approached the altar, the tactician removed something from his robe and set it upon the smooth stone slab, an offering. It was a gold scarab, probably an artifact Elastamun would have found on Earth in Ahmed's shop.

Then he breathed deeply, and prayed, his words manifesting as neon green hieroglyphs, "Great lords of day and night, hear my plea. Our world is in danger of falling into chaos, and we seek your wisdom to save Ma'at. Show us the means to fight the dark forces that plague our kingdom, and we will be forever grateful."

As Raht finished his prayer, something happened that disturbed both of them. Raht had been expecting a vision, Gwen an outright appearance from one of the gods. Instead, the statue of Ra blinked, the avian head tilting down to look at the Thep Khufan and human. Then its arms moved, the two stars suspended in midair, now glowing and generating an intense light, crackling with energy like a tesla coil. Ra's arms moved down until his hands were manipulating the light in such a way that the wall behind the altar filled with a great rectangle of light, all but blinding the two people and filling the room with loud rumbling noises. Then, still glowing, something stirred within the rectangle until it gained enough definition to reveal itself as a portal, a swirling hole of sand.

"What is that?" Gwen shouted over the noise of this phenomenon.

"I think it's a portal!" Raht called "If Ra created this for us, we had better enter it!"

"Where does it lead?"

"I don't know, but just trust me!"

Feeling that no other options were open to them, having come all this way, Gwen accepted, and followed the tactician through this portal, to parts unknown.

Captain Drexel entered the pharaoh's study, reporting from a scroll, "My lord, our drones indicate quantum-radio traces of a fleet of cloaked vehicles heading our way. What should I tell the troops?"

"Hold your fire until I say otherwise, I have an agent that can take care of this problem," Rehk'Set ordered.

Drexel bowed and affirmed, "Yes, son of Ra."

Rehk'Set pulled out his video-com again and paged, "Ilais, report in."

"Yes, pharaoh?"

"Commence 'Apep' procedure."

"My lord."

On one of the ships, the figure of Ilais sneaked about like a ghost. She'd flattened herself slim against the floor, paper-thin. The drone of the engines drowned out her cloth-like shuffling as she slinked toward the front of the cockpit. The feet of several different species clogged the floor; She had to carefully weave around a pair of bulging black legs in the gunner's seat. Once there, still cloaked while breaking out a Transylian multitool, a powerful swiss army knife, she flipped out a screwdriver head and removed a panel under the dashboard. Quietly setting down the panel under her left arm and containing the screws by tearing off some of her bandages and wrapping them in it like a parcel, Ilais then removed a small scroll from her robe, making sure that the pilot wasn't looking in her direction.

The scroll contained a wiring diagram for a standard hovercraft. Each model's circuitry was manufactured the same way, so this told her which wire powered what. She tapped a button on the tool to extend a set of motorized cutters. Consulting the diagram, she clipped a single purple wire, the one for the ship's cloaking system. Nothing happened, save a blinking light on the console that the pilot was too focused to notice at the moment. Quickly, unwrapping her makeshift envelope, Ilais covered the wiring board up and replaced the screws with rapid speed. Being a guard had quickened her reflexes.

Unfortunately, as Ilais prepared to sneak back to the rear of the ship, a canine foot thudded down on top of her body. There was one of the few flaws to cloaking devices: Touch.

"What the...Hey!" A Loboan soldier snarled as he slouched forward to see what he'd just stepped on.

All four passengers, the gunner Undyyne, and pilot noticed the telltale sign of another Thep Khufan, sprawled out across the floor of the ship, bandages stretched thin. Ilais' cover had been blown.

"Hot-Ra, this is Starglider," Undyyne's voice buzzed over the radio. "We have an intruder on our craft. Over,"

Ja'Kaal twitched when he heard this, instantly responding, "I confirm, please describe, over."

"Looks like a female Thep Khufan, has a Transylian multitool and a wiring diagram," the fish warrior complied, "Wouldn't give her name but she has the sign of the Rigil clan. She managed to cripple our cloaking device before we caught her."

Ja'Kaal knew immediately what that meant, so he ordered, "Restrain her however you can and make sure she can't stretch her way out."

"Affirmative, Starglider out."

Within the next 10 minutes, the invisible fleet soon arrived at Rehk'Set's palace complex. As he braked, Ja'Kaal ordered, "All craft, stop. Hold your position until my next order, acknowledged?"

The other ships complied with this command.

Ja'Kaal pulled out a pair of tactical binoculars and observed the palace. "I was right, their fleet is quite dense. That red shield is protecting the palace like a dome. We might not be able to send support down with you after all."

"Then, how do we get in?" Ben asked.

The commander scanned to the east, and noticed how close the riverbank came to the palace. Zooming in slightly, he also noticed pipes threading from the base of the complex. "It's possible that they haven't guarded the water pipework. That could be a suitable entrance."

Ben looked at his watch and picked a form he really dreaded using, but figured it was necessary. Soon, the tucked seatbelt collapsed around what was now a 5-inch alien: Gray Matter.

Marnor took interest and giggled, "A Galvan, eh? Quite a rarity in these parts."

"Here, let me help you," Ja'Kaal offered, stretching his fingers to wrap Ben and bring him onto the dash for a better look. Ben felt weird being embraced in bandages that large from his perspective, but appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

Staring out at the vista through the glass, Ben used his advanced mind to consider the tactics, then explained – his high-pitched voice still getting laughs out of the gunner, "Ja'Kaal, I think you're right. I could probably sneak into the palace through a faucet or something, then disable the shield from inside. But the question is: How would I get in there from up here?"

"I have an idea," the blue commander answered as he reached below the dash for his bow and arrows. Mounting one, he asked, "Attach yourself to this arrow, you will see what I mean."

Ben felt nervous about what this guy was going to do, but shook his head and accepted, "Well, you're the leader," before jumping onto the shaft of that arrow, his frog-like adhesive skin sticking to the wood. With a free hand, Ja'Kaal hit the canopy switch twice in quick succession so that only a tiny gap was open.

"Brace yourself, child," he commanded while aiming through the gap. Staring down what looked like a log from his perspective at the massive arrowhead, Ben shivered for a moment. Then with an audible "TWANG!", Ja'Kaal fired the arrow.

Ben felt like he was reliving that tailspin from his last hovercar trip, only much faster and on a larger distance. The guards below couldn't see where it was fired from, but knew its destination. Two of them broke from their post and rushed over to the drainpipes to find out. By an incredible stroke of marksmanship, the arrow landed with a "CLING!" right near the edge of one of the pipes. Still dizzy from all that high-speed spinning, Ben tried to remember the plan and quickly set his part into motion. He jumped off the arrow and, just as those guards were approaching the shore, he flipped around and began scaling the ceiling of one of the pipes. It was about as exhaustive as the time when he scaled an air vent in the house of Howell, that conspiracy theorist who caught him when the Omnitrix glitched into keeping him like that longer than usual.

The guards failed to see anything other than the arrow, but recognized the gold color of its feather as the Golden Guard. One way or another, they knew that group was here somewhere.

In the meantime, Ben nearly exhausted himself from scaling the now vertical pipe, but by chance he happened to find a side path that opened into the floor of a sauna. Probably a luxury for the pharaoh.

"Man, that commander really knows his stuff," Ben muttered while trying to catch his breath. "Now, if I were a shield generator, where would I hide?"

But to throw a wrench in his plans, the watch timed out. Two gossiping female Thep Khufans in gray robes were discussing something just outside the sealed wooden door, but stopped upon noticing the red flash behind it.

The swirling sand portal ended in a similar temple to the one they were just in, except the sky outside was entirely dark.

Right by the entrance stood a lone Thep Khufan in dark robes and whose head was shaped like a jackal's. Gwen could see the similarities between this, Loboans, and the creatures on Earth, but the muzzle was longer and thinner, the ears taller and more sensitive. Glowing yellow eyes leaked from its black head, lined by the kohl makeup almost every Egyptian human was adorned with. Unlike all the Thep Khufans Gwen had seen so far, this being wasn't wearing a mask or headdress, the animal head literally was their head. What kind of being was this?

Silently, this being beckoned them to follow, and the two visitors exited the temple to a copy of the island they were on, but the river was black like that of the Styx, and rather than their parked hovercraft, this strange being operated a simple wooden boat that the human Egyptians would've used. A simple lantern dangled from a pole at one end, illuminating the being's hand as it beckoned Raht and Gwen into the boat. Once there, it pushed off with a long stick to propel the boat upstream, opposite of where they had come.

"What is this?" Gwen whispered with a slight hint of fear in her voice.

"I think we have entered the Underworld," Raht answered, "I honestly expected something more direct, but I will not question the gods' will."

Gwen looked over her shoulder at the man rowing the boat, and asked, "Then...is that Anubis?"

"Probably. We always thought that he ushered souls to the afterlife, but never before have either of us witnessed this ourselves." Raht warned the girl, "We had best remain quiet, for we are both in sacred territory."

The boat ride was long and unsettling. Nothing resembling the territory they left was in sight here, not one building or plant life. The whole place was a black, endless void disconnected from reality, as if the surface world was a 2D plane and this place was thousands of feet below it, like how a video game has to switch from one map file to another when loading levels. Gwen was starting to take back her joke about Ben feeling lonely without her. She could've used his snarky personality here to help break the mood, although Anubis might not have approved then.

Then the craft took a huge plunge down a sharp cataract and splashed into a second stream, colored red instead of black. Here, Gwen could see restless souls along the rocky walls on either side of the river, stumbling about in moaning agony with no means to reach paradise. For a moment, those souls almost made her think of that terrible story about the attack, but she couldn't let such dark theories plague her mind at a time like this. Raht simply hoped the sun god would bless those poor souls with his light and warmth soon; he felt something wasn't right, yet thought that could've explained the problem with the pharaoh.

Finally, the boat swerved around a bend into a massive lake that Gwen could swear was filled with lava instead of water, complete with a sulfuric smell reminiscent all too well of the volcano under the Navajo settlement. A large dark island rose up out of it like the K'veer mansion, complete with a long dock, and Anubis steered his boat up to it.

Anubis suddenly pointed them to join a long line of souls in this dock, as if saying, "Wait your turn." Then, the boat strangely sank into the lava and Anubis seemingly disappeared in a flash of light, probably teleporting somewhere else for his duties.

"Well..." Gwen muttered, "This'll take a while. I wonder how Ben's doing?"

Ben sat up on one of the benches in the octagonal steam room and tried to flatten himself against the wall behind the door frame, trying not to be seen. One of the two Khufans opened the door and stepped in. Not saying a word, she looked around, and too late, she sighted Ben hunkered up against the wall. Still silent, she lashed out with both arms and ensnared him with speed that reminded him of Ghostfreak's minion. Cutting off those bandages, she lifted the imprisoned boy over her shoulders and effortlessly carried him out of the room, ignoring his muffled pleas to release him.

"What did you find, Valerian?" Her partner asked with humorous curiosity as they walked down a hallway together, prisoner in tow.

"Ben Tennyson, the pharaoh's prime target. The one with the Omnitrix."

"Shouldn't we let the guards do this?"

"I was a guard, too, you know. Alongside the pharaoh's little friend, no less."

"Is that right?"

"Yes, Rel'Hathor. That is, until the pharaoh demoted me for trying to get...close his adviser. Thought he was hiding something."

Neither of the mummies knew that Ben could hear what they were saying.

As they walked, Rel'Hathor got a good look at Ben's eyes as they protruded from his wrappings. Still struggling underneath those bandages, she considered something, then suggested to Valerian, "You know, I think we should bathe this being before handing him over to the guards. Who knows what the pharaoh would do to him?"

Valerian considered the possibility, then nodded, still feeling Ben struggling against his bindings on her shoulder.

Just before turning around to return to a crossroads in the hallway, a guard called, "Stop, what are you two carrying?"

Both servants stood at attention, then Rel'Hathor anxiously stated, "Um, we caught the pharaoh's target, SIR!"

"By sheer luck!" Valerian agreed "Yes, I apprehended him myself in one of the steam rooms!"

The guard eyed Ben's ensnared figure carefully, then ordered, "Give him to me, I will have him delivered to the pharaoh at once."

"Not yet," Rel'Hathor insisted, "He needs cleaning. Once that is done, THEN we will give him to the pharaoh."

The guard hesitated, his partner watching with intent, then nodded, "Very well, but be quick about it, and report to the nearest guard you see when you are finished. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" both servants simultaneously affirmed.

"You may go now."

"Thank you," Valerian finished before carting Ben off into a second hallway. The corridor twisted and turned, until finally they turned left, into a door that opened into a lavish bathroom, a large tub taking up the middle of the circular room. Shelves containing jars and bottles of cosmetic products and various grooming tools filled a portion of one wall, the rest occupied by a large dressing table. A pair of sinks occupied another, and a third was lined by a group of cabinets, along with some equivalent of a toilet, with a curtain hung up around it for privacy.

Rel'Hathor locked the door while Valerian set Ben down at the foot of the tub. From what little he could see, this room seemed to be reserved for important guests or ambassadors, and the pharaoh must have had one of his own elsewhere in the palace. Then a question rang in Ben's mind: Why would Thep Khufans require bathing? He'd guessed that their bandages were a type of skin, but how often would that need cleaning? But then he considered that since other aliens were here, they'd need to be bathed also, and must have other methods of relieving themselves that TKs didn't.

Then Ben tried to look at the bright side: At least here he was getting special treatment by two women, rather than standing among a bunch of naked aliens in a public shower like last time.

Finding a pair of scissors on a shelf among other things, Valerian proceeded to cut Ben's bindings while Rel'Hathor started the water flowing.

Ben almost immediately wanted to say something, but Valerian covered his mouth and whispered, "Be quiet, intruder!"

"Valerian, be nice. Do you even know what goddess bears my namesake?"

The ex-warrior just nodded, before swiftly removing his clothes, then wrapping her fingers around his arms to lift him into the tub. Rather than leaving him with a full tub of water, instead, the tub was only filled halfway, leaving the two mummies to scrub down his naked body with soap and sponges. The activity from both of them was so frantic and sudden that he couldn't get a word out. Part of him welcomed this because of the attention, but another part was disturbed by how unfamiliar it was. What surprised him most was how unfazed either of them were by his humanoid...features. Apparently they were well used to this.

As she worked on his shoulders, Rel'Hathor noticed Ben's translator, and laughed, "Oh look at this, Valerian! Someone brought this human a translator!" Then she leaned closer to his right ear and playfully asked Ben, "Do you like this? Only very special people have the privilege of being bathed by us servants!"

"Ugh, I would if miss Salarian or whatever hadn't kidnapped me first," he grumbled as the mummy in question scrubbed his legs.

Valerian looked up at him and complained, "Do not blame me, we were personally ordered to apprehend intruders on sight. In fact, you should be lucky we're doing this for you, Ten-ee-sohn. The pharaoh would likely kill you, cut off your arm and take that little thing away."

Trying to talk his way out of being captured, noticing these maidens were almost done, he pointed out, "You two sure gossip a lot. I could hear everything you said back there. What if I said I could take down the pharaoh for you? That way, warriors like you don't have to work for him."

"I highly doubt that, human," Valerian argued, "This palace is filled with soldiers and mages, and there is a barrier surrounding this place. You will never evade his forces."

"Why don't you just tell me where the shield generator is? I have friends outside that can take care of those people after I turn it off,"

Rel'Hathor thought about this as she started drying Ben off with towels while Valerian stretched out her arm to pull the drain plug, then informed him, "You did not hear this from me, but if you ascend one story and enter the second door on your left, you will find the generator in the pharaoh's personal quarters. I service him from time to time, so that is how I know its location. I recommend disguising yourself, however."

They let him put his clothes back on after drying the boy.

"Oh, don't you worry, ladies," Ben smiled as he activated the watch again, this time selecting Benmummy once more, feeling the need to put his training into action. When the green light faded, his deep voice stated, "I was never here!"

The two servants stared wide-eyed at what just happened, then Rel'Hathor quietly opened the door for Ben. As he stepped through it, Ben turned around and added, "Oh, and uh...thanks for the bath!"

"You are most welcome," the kind servant nodded before waving him along with her hand as if to say, "Go before someone sees us!"

Benmummy searched for a staircase while the two servants walked back the way they had come, resuming their normal duties.

"How in the name of Isis did that human turn into one of our kind?" Rel'Hathor asked, letting all of her tense politeness drop.

"I hear the Omnitrix can collect the DNA of others, whatever that means," Valerian muttered. "Maybe he simply collected a sample?"

"I just hope he can use that form to take down the pharaoh."

"Excuse me?" One of the guards overheard their conversation.

"Nothing! Just...looking for our next orders, sir!"


	13. Storming the Palace

Ilais had been tied up in her own bandages, her arms and legs twisted together and held by two very muscular soldiers, a Transylian named Nimdok, and the Loboan who stepped on her, called Lukaro. Undyyne unlocked her seat's locking clamp and turned it around, interrogating their captive with a glowing spear aimed at her head. She reactivated the targeting system in her bionic eye, hooked up to her suit's subsystems for better accuracy.

"So tell us, warrior, why did you decide to sneak onto our ship? Our base's security could've caught you!"

"I...have the wrong ship," Ilais protested. "I was looking for that of your leader's.|

"Did you do this by yourself, or did someone order you to?"

"I would rather die than answer that question!" The dark-headed warrior shrieked.

Nimdok charged his electrical coils, one hand prepared to send the current onto Ilais' body. He warned, "That can be arranged, my friend. But do you really want that?"

Ilais struggled against her bindings, resistant to so much as talk. That was when Nimdok noticed the gauntlet in her right hand. Examining it more closely, he could see that it clearly contained a holo-com inside.

"You DO have an accomplice, don't you?" He muttered.

Ilais just kept trying to escape, screaming, "I'LL! NEVER! TALK!"

"Nimdok, give her a taste," Undyyne commanded.

"With pleasure," the Transylian smirked as he touched two charged metal fingers to her body, green electricity arced across it – avoiding Lukaro across from him in the process.

Ilais struggled and groaned in pain over this torture method, but at the last minute, she shrieked, "Okay, I'll talk! I work for the pharaoh! He sent me to cripple the ship that Ben Tennyson was on, but I boarded the wrong one!"

Nimdok stopped zapping her, smirking, "That's better."

"Why d'you tamper with the cloaking device, then?" Undyyne interrogated.

"So the pharaoh would see your fleet coming. And he will, I know that much," Ilais stated with a sinister tone. "Once he sees your ship, his army will open fire upon you all."

"We'll see about that," Undyyne argued while turning her chair back around towards the console, locking it in place.

At the narrowest of possible moments, Undyyne sighted a missile headed for her ship, as did the pilot, and they swerved out of its path before the thing was mere feet from the bow of the craft. More missiles were launched, but Undyyne's internal targeting system allowed her to use the ship's turret to down the missiles before they hit her.

Her hand darted to the radio, "Hot-Ra, this is Starglider. Be advised: Our cloaking system is disabled, and the enemy fleet is likely to see us before we de-cloak. Recommendations?"

"I confirm, Starglider," Ja'Kaal responded. "All craft: Keep your shields at front and watch for enemy fire around the palace."

Rehk'Set watched as the one uncloaked ship fired its own missiles on the guards below, shooting down his missiles with its plasma turret.

"Nnnnggaaah! How dare they cheat our artillery?!" Rehk'Set snarled with rage.

He turned to his mage next to the throne, demanding, "Skaraab, is the final plan operational?"

"Yes, under the new site, but our scientists are still processing the appropriate target location on planet Earth," the purple-robed sorcerer answered. "By the way, director Shemay wanted me to give you your personal code sheet," he handed the pharaoh a small, thin scroll. "We will enter the launch code once the target is found, so we're entrusting you with the remaining codes."

"Thank you, my mage," Rehk'Set accepted the document, stuffing it into his robe. "How much longer must I wait? The power open to me is tantalizing!"

"We estimate the next seven hours, but an announcement will be made when we know for sure," the deep-voiced man stated.

Then a female Thep Khufan priest in white robes and a headdress based on Isis, approached the throne. She asked the pharaoh, "In the meantime, why don't you rest? You have been staring at this screen for hours. Trust me when I say that everything will come together by nightfall."

She stretched out one arm and tapped a button under the pharaoh's right hand, turning off the viewscreen.

Looking at the woman who did that, Rehk'Set almost wanted to scream, but decided that, unlike most people, priests were nothing to vent anger at, being one of the few closest to the gods, besides him.

He bowed his head and answered, "Yes, Hatshep. I am feeling rather weary, now that you mention it."

"Good. I will call some servants to come and bathe you, then we will see you to bed. You will be fine until dawn, I promise you that," she patted the pharaoh's shoulder.

With that, Hatshep led the pharaoh through a second set of doors to his quarters, and gave him privacy to change clothes while he waited for the servants in his personal bathroom.

His tiredness was not exaggerated in the slightest. Only now did Rehk'Set know that he needed sleep more than ever. His richly appointed sarcophagus beckoned, even now.

The line of souls took what felt like hours to pass. Both Gwen and Raht guessed that each one was being judged in the Hall of the Dead at the end for how they fared in life. Who knew how many were evil, how many of them good? What disturbed them more than most, however, was that a majority of the souls in line were the figures of very young Thep Khufans, no more than masks with spindly little limbs of bandages, almost like crabs. Both mortals could sense that these were the victims of that horrible, mysterious disease. All of them dead no more than a year into life. How could they explain themselves to Osiris without the means to speak properly?

Eventually, they watched each soul pass, entering the temple but never leaving. From what Gwen remembered about her knowledge of Egyptian mythology, there were only two outcomes in there: Either they moved onto the afterlife, or ended up eaten by the creature Ammut. But the question on her mind was: If this was the underworld that ancient Egyptians always spoke of, why did it have connections to this planet as well? Was there a mutual link?

Trying to break the fear, Gwen casually muttered to Raht, "Say, I think Ben said he wanted to tell you that there's a lot of strange stuff in fiction about Egypt."

"Oh? Like what?" Raht asked with curiosity, eager to stop thinking about these dead people.

"Like a book about a museum where things come alive because of some pharaoh's magic tablet, or another where gods live in the human world as people because the world's going to end if two god-hosting-kids don't save it," she listed off examples.

"How curious," Raht rubbed his wrapped chin. "Considering where we are, perhaps what lays inside may prove that fiction as fact?"

"Who knows?" Gwen shrugged. "I just hope they can help us fight the pharaoh or something."

"Me too, little girl," he sighed, bowing his head. "Me too."

Gwen and Raht could feel more souls arriving behind them, chattering like a normal crowd would be on the surface, but some of them were moaning and wailing in despair over their death, probably murder or sickness victims. The cacophony of noise it all made was unreal, a noise no human should've had the burden of hearing. The voices were overlaid with an ethereal, echoing tone common to ghosts in movies, as if the noise was drifting in and out of phase with audible sound waves. Raht tried to relax with the hindsight that these were real, innocent souls of the dead, not malicious blobs of protoplasm like the Ectonurites.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they arrived at the door of the building. More souls were lined up against a large dais with a huge set of scales between them and several strangely headed people. Anubis was on the left; a man with an ornate Atef crown, green face, and holding a crook and flail, had to be Osiris. The third was a woman with long dark hair and an elaborate set of wings attached to her arms, probably Isis. Off to the far left, holding a tablet and stylus was the unmistakably distinct figure of Thoth. Across the room from that was the war god Horus. Finally, behind this tribunal of gods, barely visible at the back of the room, stood the similarly bird-headed sun god, Ra, watching over everything. However, unlike the depictions from Egypt, none of these figures looked human, rather appearing similar to Thep Khufans in stature, yet their bandages were colored in accordance with each person's body, and lacked a glow beneath them.

Below the scales stood a ferocious-looking crossbreed of a dog and crocodile, no doubt Ammut. All the gods were clustered together in a horseshoe formation, giants towering over everyone else in the room, their Thep Khufan figures faintly visible.

Gwen had a bad feeling about what these people would say when it was her and Raht's turn. What would gods say to living mortals in this realm?

Ben tried to keep as stealthy and casual as possible in the upper hallway. Guards were patrolling the place back and forth. Columns inlaid with hieroglyphs were all capped with a metal ball depicting the eye of Horus, some of which Ben could unmistakably see were moving back and forth like a security camera. He tried to make sure to move when they weren't pointing at him, and kept his Omnitrix symbol out of sight, for he knew from experience that that would give him away at any moment.

Following Rel'Hathor's directions, Ben gently stepped down the corridor past two doors, one of them reading "GUARD ROOM", another across from it labeled "ARMORY". As he turned the next corner to the left, Ben stopped dead at the sight of two guards in heavy armor, a Florauna and a Tetramand. How did the pharaoh get these aliens, let alone enlist them as his personal guards?

The tetramand shouted, "You! What are you doing up here? This area belongs to the pharaoh!"

Trying to think of something to say, Ben thought up an excuse on the fly, "I...I was going to bring him clean clothes for tomorrow, but I can't find the right room to get them from."

Surprisingly, this worked, and the florauna directed him, in a clearer voice than Ben's own form, "You will find them at the end of the hall, dead ahead."

"Thank you."

"Now move, servant!" The tetramand yelled.

As Ben shuffled off towards the designated room, he mentally asked himself, "Do I really sound that harsh as Fourarms?"

Passing two Thep Khufan soldiers in blue robes and gold headdresses similar to Ja'Kaal's, Ben found the door he needed at the end of the hall, a wooden door marked "LINEN ROOM".

Opening it, he found a walk-in closet with dozens of outfits, each one tagged and assigned to a certain person. Checking each one, Ben found a long black robe near the front, its tag simply reading "Pharaoh, 19th Day." Removing it from its hanging bar using his powers, Ben folded the cloak as cleanly as he could, holding it with both hands as he carefully closed the door and tried the guarded room again.

"Good, you may enter," the Tetramand nodded as he reached for the door with one of his lower arms, while the Florauna warned, "But do not disturb the pharaoh. He is sleeping at the moment."

"I understand, sir," Ben nodded as he stepped through the open door.

Ben happened to enter a room lit entirely in dim red light, giving the room an ominous feel, accentuated when the door loudly shut behind him. On one wall was a large flat slab of stone that Ben could swear was a flat-screen monitor, something he hoped his parents could buy him at some point. Across from it, in the middle of the marble room was a small throne with a side table holding a radio-like device. Near the wall with the monitor was a strange flat machine with a wire coming out of it, which Ben didn't want to take interest in. Behind the throne, flanked by columned marble busts of the pharaoh, was another set of double doors, probably leading to the pharaoh's bedroom. He placed the new cloak in a drop box embedded in the wall next to those doors, as a sign overhead instructed. Realizing that the pharaoh would likely come out of this room if Ben screwed up, he used his enhanced strength to push the two busts in front of both doors, tying the handles of each together with his tensile bandages, and using more to jam the gap between the doors and the floor.

Finally, at the far end of the room, between a bookshelf of scrolls and a desk with blank papyrus still on it, an odd, dark machine glowed in stripe-like spots with an eerie red light, brighter than the room's illumination, almost like something the Empire from Star Wars would build. He could hear a low, steady hum coming from it as he approached.

Checking that no one was watching, Ben inspected the device more closely, crouching down to get a better look at it. The only thing noticeable about this contraption was a small panel hiding a control system inside.

Opening it, on the control panel was a small display showing pulsing red bar graphs of the energy it was generating to create the huge shield, followed by various knobs and buttons, but the thing he most sought, however, was its power switch, shown as a bright red knob at the very bottom.

For a moment, Ben asked himself, "Why leave this thing unprotected? Shouldn't there be a lock or something?" Then he figured that since this pharaoh wasn't in his right mind, Ben chalked it up to the man not putting enough care into security.

With one faint click of the knob, Ben deactivated the machine, watching all four bar graphs abruptly drop to zero, the red light fading as he shut the access panel, the hum steadily dropping in pitch and volume as the thing powered down. He felt like Obi-Wan Kenobi doing this, somehow. Just in case someone might turn it back on, Ben noticed a thick cable running from it to some outlet, and, sighting a strange Egyptian sword on one wall, grabbed that with his elasticity and used it to sever the cable so that it couldn't be reconnected, keeping the sword close as a possible weapon.

Now all that remained was to either get out of the palace or contact the Hot-Ra. Realizing that radio could be of use, Ben suddenly found himself with an idea. Sitting down in the throne, he tapped a button on one arm to activate the screen, showing the Starglider far in the distance behind the rest of the invisible fleet. Ben tuned the radio, trying to find Ja'Kaal's link. Surely the pharaoh would be spying on communications like that? Then he happened to catch his voice cheering, "-units, this is Hot-Ra, the barrier is down! Uncloak and open fire on all enemy forces, we are going down to breach the palace!"

On the screen, one by one, all the ships disabled their cloaking devices, the Hot-Ra leading the fleet. Plasma bullets rained down on the guards below, though he couldn't see them from this angle.

All of a sudden, alarms started blaring in the room, sensors in the room having scanned his body and noticed the Omnitrix symbol Ben forgot to keep covered when he sat in the throne. A female computer voice droned, "WARNING: Primary target detected in pharaoh's quarters. Primary target in pharaoh's quarters."

Thinking fast, Ben reached for a microphone connected to the radio, held down the talk button and called, "Ja'Kaal? Ja'Kaal, do you read me? This is Ben, calling from the palace!"

"Ben, is that you? You sound different, over," the commander responded with concern."

"Yes, I'm in another form. Listen, alarms are going off and people are coming, where are you?"

"We're landing as I speak. We'll be entering the palace and get you out as soon as possible, over,"

"Copy, Where do I go?"

"Just get to the throne room, it should be on the ground level. We'll find you, I promise!"

"Will do, Ben out."

As Ben set down the mike, he sprang from the chair and ran to the outer doors. Ben could hear the doors to the pharaoh's room straining and creaking as he banged on them and struggled with the handles.

Without time to be sneaky, Ben wrenched the outer doors open and took off in a sprint for the stairs, alarms still wailing in the hall. Every guard in the area took off in his direction. With an elastic swing, Ben whipped around the doorway into the spiral staircase he came from.

As he reached the bottom, Ben almost ran over none other than Captain of the Guard, Drexel.

"I don't know how you broke into the palace, but this is the end for you, intruder!" he grunted, forming one of his arms into a tapering sword blade.

Remembering the sword tucked into his bandages, Ben readied the weapon with his right hand, and shouted, "En garde, then!"

As the Hot-Ra and the rest of the fleet landed in front of the palace, the flagship first to do so, Ja'Kaal looked back towards Max in one of the seats behind his and Marnor's, and reminded him as he powered down the ship, plasma fire still raining overhead, "Do you have your weapon, Max?"

Grandpa Max stuttered for a moment, then admitted, "Um...I don't recall being given one, no."

"You'll have to stay close to us, then."

"I can protect you, sir," Elastamun offered.

Neferti giggled, then added, "Do not fret, Marnor, Ja'Kaal, Raht, and I have a special secret...to coin a phrase, up our sleeves."

"And what's that?" Max asked.

"It is, in a way, similar to your grandson's power of transformation. Watch!" Marnor stated, excited over what was to come next.

All three golden warriors simultaneously shouted, "With the strength of Ra!"

Their figures were suddenly cloaked in blue, purple, and red light that lit the cockpit with the brightness of a sun, and would've been seen if not for the one-way coating on the canopy's exterior. Max and Elastamun gazed in awe as visions of a falcon, cat, and ram enveloped the three Thep Khufan warriors like in an old anime transformation sequence.

Then the light faded, and now the Golden Guard leaders were true to their name, wearing armor decorated in elaborate Egyptian, pharaoh-like patterns themed after their various animal motifs. Elastamun in particular was dumbstruck at Neferti's attractive cat-themed armor attached to her red jumpsuit; clawed knuckle dusters now strapped to her fingers, a helmet enclosing her head in the shape of her associated cat motif. If the scribe hadn't found this woman attractive before, this version of her certainly was.

Ja'Kaal hit the canopy switch, mounted his bow and quiver of arrows onto his back, stood up from his seat, and screamed, "CHARGE!"

The whole group jumped from the hovership, leading the throng of resistance soldiers as they stormed the palace. Ja'Kaal made quick work of shooting down the snipers on the roof, several Loboans blew away enemy guards with sonic howls, Transylians used their electricity to shock enemy soldiers through their metallic armor. Undyyne threw dozens of energy spears, Worlock and other magically gifted beings combatted enemy sorcerers, Neferti, Elastamun, and many native Thep Khufans used their natural elasticity to trap, ensnare, toss, and otherwise incapacitate their foes. Despite there being less than a hundred soldiers, the event was so powerful it almost felt like the whole planet was converging on this palace of evil. Without the shield, even as species not native to this planet, Rehk'Set's soldiers were no match for this wave of resistance. The sheer determination to fight this foe, hated by all but those close to him, was so staggering that the guards simply couldn't stand their ground to this militia.

Raht nearly jumped out of his bandages when he noticed that the soul next to be judged, which he couldn't quite discern until now, was the pharaoh's vizier.

Just after Anubis ushered this soul to the front of the room, before the scales, He heard Osiris speak, discussing Valensen's former life, and, reading from a scroll passed by Thoth, testing him on whether or not his own sins were true. Valensen answered each question with a burning honesty, as if he knew Osiris would do this ahead of time. Finally, the headed gods placed his heart on one side of the giant set of scales, the feather of Ma'at on the other, and watched as the scales moved, a needle at the top depicting what the result would be.

But at the last moment, Osiris leaned forward slightly and stated, in a voice that nearly overpowered all else in the room, "What are these mortals doing in the Hall of Judgement?" The scales were still frozen as if locked in place.

Raht answered immediately, "Great lord, we have come to convey news from the living world."

"What would merit such importance as to interrupt our judging of the dead?" Osiris demanded impatiently.

Valensen bowed his head and admitted, "Though I have proven my innocence, I know the reason for their presence."

Isis ordered, "Such a matter must be shown, not told, Osiris."

"Very well, sister," the god agreed with annoyance. Osiris first waved his hands as if commanding an orchestra to stop, rather freezing time itself instead, then used his crook to fire a beam of light at Valensen. From his head, a projection filled the room, showing his memories of the past. Thoth analyzed those memories, and scanned the footage for what he meant, then stopped on his vision on the transhuman slaves.

Thoth nodded, writing on his tablet, and turned his head towards Gwen and Raht, asking in a smooth, calm and understanding voice, "Do you know something of this soul's visions that we do not?"

Gwen quickly answered, "The pharaoh is behind what's happening, he took humans from my world – Earth, and made those slaves out of them. And he's going to keep doing it unless we stop him!"

Raht continued, "The pharaoh in question is insane and driven to complete this mission, even if it means sacrificing humans to gain more of my kind."

"I have been a witness to these horrible acts, time and time again," Valensen admitted, "And when I enlisted help to change the tide, the pharaoh had me burned alive as punishment."

The gods hesitated for a moment, then Osiris dictated, "The gods do not intervene in the matters of the living unless Ma'at is in danger."

Raht argued, "When did you last do that? We were at war with another alien species until no more than thirty years ago! Surely, our loss of physical religion did not hinder you in that regard?"

Thoth nodded, writing on his tablet, and turned his head towards Gwen and Raht, asking in a smooth, calm and understanding voice, "Do you know something of this soul's visions that we do not?"

Gwen quickly answered, "The pharaoh is behind what's happening, he took humans from my world – Earth, and made those slaves out of them. And he's going to keep doing it unless we stop him!"

Raht continued, "The pharaoh in question is insane and driven to complete this mission, even if it means sacrificing humans to gain more of my kind."

"I have been a witness to these horrible acts, time and time again," Valensen admitted, "And when I enlisted help to change the tide, the pharaoh had me burned alive as punishment."

The gods hesitated for a moment, then Osiris dictated, "The gods do not intervene in the matters of the living unless Ma'at is in danger."

Raht argued, "When did you last do that? We were at war with another alien species until no more than thirty years ago! Surely, our loss of physical religion did not hinder you in that regard?"

From behind, Ra intervened. He spoke, in a deep male voice both intimidating and understanding, "Both of your races have suffered much, and both have changed many times. To ask for our aid, you must first understand that from which we have come."

The entire Hall of Judgement vanished into a black void, and the gods now stood as a group, together. Then, suddenly, all of them transformed. Their lanky, Thep Khufan features gave way to perfect, healthy human bodies, an exact match to their depictions in Egyptian murals.

Thoth recited, "We are known as Amun Khufans."

Isis continued, "It was we who blessed both them, and your species with the gifts of enlightenment." She waved her hand, and the blackness faded to a strange sight. Below Gwen and Raht was a vista of ancient Egypt in its heyday, strangely like Gwen's dream from last night. Following the blue sky, above, upside down hung a similar scene on Anur Khufos, from long before the attack of the Ectonurites.

The gods themselves spread out to the sides of the scene, between both desert environs.

Ra continued, "Born from our celestial parents of Nut and Geb, mother of stars and father of earth, we began as the first species on Anur Khufos, and the second honored us for the gifts we gave them."

The witnesses watched, finding the inverted terrain tilting forwards into full view, as the Thep Khufans bowed to smaller versions of these gods, building temples and statues in their image, and constructing buildings from the dirt and sand, living off the plant life and fish from the various rivers and lakes. Food was brought into the temples in bowls and pots, and the dead were buried with their possessions for the afterlife.

Isis followed, "For thousands of years, it was good. Our children nourished us with offerings, and prayers and depictions honored our divine existence. Some chosen kin were even granted the ability to manipulate the streams of mana that bind the universe as one."

Thoth added, "Then, one day, we heard the cries of another species on a world across the galaxy: Earth."

The view flipped around like a hand mirror, to show the aerial view of Egypt.

Osiris dictated, "Although many races on this planet were growing, one such people could not survive without our help. So, in exchange for worship, we gifted them, too, with the knowledge to thrive in the deserts of what you call, 'Egypt'."

"But because of the...fragile nature of human minds," Thoth pointed out, "We took on forms that matched that of their kind, as you see before you,"

The gods appeared in front again, showing their human features.

"We ruled peacefully over both worlds for a time, through a mental link to a chosen being on each, the 'pharaohs', to teach them," Ra described.

Thoth continued, "They lived in a copy of our species' culture, and called it 'Egypt'. Their dead were even prepared in a similar way to Thep Khufans, for in the afterlife, all burdens are lost. That afterlife - to humans - was our world, and after death, if they were good, some could reincarnate among our children.

Raht suddenly reminded himself to research this fact later.

Then Ra shifted to a dark tone, "Then, after centuries of prosperity...chaos struck."

The whole vista shifted to show Anur Khufos and Earth befalling a disaster. On the former, like Ben's nightmare, the planet turned dark, the Ectonurites swarming the planet and waging war on the Thep Khufans. The blue sky was replaced with a thundering cloudscape, lightning cracking all around. Meanwhile, on Earth, different city-states and foreigners were battling each other for power, struggling to have one belief over the other.

"Set, my brother," Osiris described, "Decided that we were too good for either of these planets, and sought to destroy them both from within."

The vision shifted to show a glowing red Amun Khufan, with an aardvark's head, whispering into Zs'Skayr's ear and manipulating his army like strings on a puppet into enslaving the entire Anur system. Likewise, this alien, now in human form, brainwashed various pharaohs and military leaders into attacking each other with their fanatic armies.

"He wanted to watch everything built for us, to crumble...into nothing," Horus piped up for the first time.

"Set was so powerful that he banished all of us to another reality, that where the dead go to rest: the Duat." Osiris continued. "We were imprisoned there, so that we could not aid either the Thep Khufans or humans. He swindled me into giving up the throne of space and time to allow this to happen, shattering my body to pieces in the process."

"The conflicts on the two worlds came and went, with some cultures still sustaining us with prayers and tributes, but we could not speak to them from the Duat," Thoth sighed, "The psychic link was blocked, leaving us helpless to watch the worlds grow without our guidance."

"But then," Horus grunted with vigor, "After centuries of our struggling to reason with Set, I stood up and took it upon myself to challenge him for the throne and end this needless destruction!"

In the vision, Horus grew to a huge size and grabbed Set's devlish figure by his native bandages, and they engaged in a duel with each other. This was mirrored by the armies of Mentuhotep II pushing back the people of Lower Egypt and struggling to conquer that part of the country, and soldiers on Anur Khufos trying to fend off the Ectonurites. Then, Set ripped one of Horus' eyes out with his bare hands, just after Horus ran Set through the groin with an enchanted dagger. Despite being half-blind, Horus grappled with the evil god and managed to get the upper hand, when suddenly the stolen eye vanished, and Thoth broke the fight to mediate the two gods and form a truce, said eye having empowered the scribe god to be able to do so. The scene changed again to a timelapse scene of the two gods being judged by Osiris over who more rightly deserves the throne.

"Eventually, Set bowed to our will," Osiris narrated, "and we were released to the physical world again...but it was not the same as we had left it."

"When we returned, for a time things returned to the way they were, but as more centuries wore on, the people of Egypt soon lost the understanding of their culture, and eventually, were consumed by enemies." Ra dictated, "And as for our kin, Set's mark had been made on our planet and all the others, the enslavement of our home . We had little to return to."

The strange scene now showed the whole Anur system enslaved by the ghosts, and Egypt nearly destroyed from outside attacks, while Greece and other cultures flourished. Libraries and temples burned to the ground, recorded Egyptian knowledge lost to the sands of time, tombs looted and vandalized.

Raht spoke up, "Wait, this makes no sense! How could you be so reluctant to just...return and fix it all again? You are GODS!"

"Because it turned out that we were not alone," Thoth waved his stylus, showing various humanoid aliens that morphed into the shapes of Greek deities, Mayan, Chinese, Hindi, and more. The feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl arriving in a Mayan city; Ancestral offshoots of multiple aliens teaching the Greeks a better way of life; a glowing man appearing as Shiva."

"Others had come to teach humanity where we left off, and our ways were no longer known by the masses. Humans, lost in their pride for violence and power...had forgotten us." Isis bowed her head, on the verge of crying.

"We had tried to maintain balance with humans through the link with the pharaohs, but even they stopped caring over time," Osiris continued, ". And with our own home's culture in disarray, our influence there was weak as well."

Ra stated, "So, after a long time of pondering, I consulted our mother, Nut, and she understood our plight. We sought advice to, as you say, 'fix it all again', and this is what she said."

Thoth added, "Nut advised us that she had sighted the presence of a device of great power across the galaxy, a power that would spell doom in the wrong hands."

"The Omnitrix," Gwen gasped.

"So you know of this, too," Horus judged.

"Soon, we came together to decide on how to solve this terrible problem," Thoth continued, "And it was decided that we had to remove the creatures that enslaved our home system. Even Set agreed to this."

Gwen felt excited, knowing that pieces were coming together.

"Now that we were no longer constrained by the Duat, we could potentially return to Anur Khufos at will, but the...phantoms enslaving it made that difficult. Nonetheless," Isis explained, "I disguised myself as a bird and whispered to him that the device existed, and his greed for power was so great that he dropped all and fled the planet in search of it."

"As for the rest of his kind," Ra finished with an air of pride, "Set and I drove them away, destroying their clouds of darkness so that they could not hide from our sun chariot."

Gwen and Raht watched with awe as the sun rose over Anur Khufos, and Ra's glowing boat cut through the Matrix clouds like the sword of light it was. Several Ectonurites screamed and writhed in agony, some dying from exposure, the rest fleeing off-world. The sight was like a blood stain being cleaned from a piece of clothing, or a tumor being removed from a body. Anur Khufos was free again, and the former slaves cheered in reverence.

"So, our planet was reclaimed, but Earth can never again know of our existence. Not with how much it has changed in comparison," Horus sighed, waving his hand to speed up the two planets. "Only thing we have not yet done is restored the link of telepathy, and we felt that our kin needed time to recover before then."  
The vista cut back to Earth and Anur Khufos in daylight. The former, ancient Egypt was now the Earth of 2005, modern cities and society gleaming in sunlight. Anur Khufos, with its technological integration in full swing with the ancient traditions, as little as there were. Sounds and videos filtered in of conspiracy theorists, urban legends, and warped Christian beliefs about aliens and Jesus Christ. Likewise came visions of the ominous Horus drones, exploiting the story of his lost eye to warped proportions; The rumor of the Omnitrix made religious, and Rehk'Set's distorted "mummification" process.

Gwen gasped, "It all makes sense! No wonder people think you guys were myths! If you did come back today, people would freak out and try to kill you instead."

Osiris shifted the discussion, "But, now, as you say, things have changed."

The gods examined Earth, filtering in broadcasts of disappearances in Egypt and around the globe, along with watching Elastamun roaming the town on his research mission, while one Thep Khufan after another emerges from the palace complex on Anur Khufos to build more structures.

Finally, everything faded back to the Hall of Judgement, the souls of the dead still temporally frozen until their turn came.

Osiris concluded, "So, the story you have brought to us confirms that Set is on the rise once more, and has used the pharaoh 'Rehk'Set' to do so. I surmise Set has grown bored with this idle period of inactivity and done this as a result." He waved his arms again, time resumed, and the scales hung evenly. The gods bowed for a moment, and Osiris judged the ghost of the vizier, "Valensen, thank you. You have proven yourself, and are indeed worthy of the afterlife. Although you served an agent of Set, your valiance in turning the tides against him have earned you this gift of vindication. Go now, and may your existence prosper for ever more."

Valensen bowed, "My deepest of thanks to you, O God of Nature." And with that, the vizier looked back one last time, and asked, "Gwen Tennyson, before I go, could you deliver a message?"

"What's that?" The girl timidly asked after all this.

"Tell Elastamun that my death was not in vain, and that his knowledge of humans will go to a greater cause in the future. Just that."

"All right, I'll...try to remind him." the girl replied with hesitation.

Then with a single smile, the ghostly vizier looked away, uttered a single, "Goodbye," then vanished.

Knowing that these two mortals were holding up the line, Thoth concluded, "It will take time to assess this turn of events, but we will search for a means to combat this new threat."

Ra finished, "In the meantime, return to your world so that you may delay him until then." And with that, Gwen and Raht were hit by a beam of light from the sun god's eyes, and for a moment were surrounded by whiteness. When the light faded, they were standing inside the palace's throne room, witnessing the ongoing battle between the resistance and the pharaoh's forces.

Actions 


	14. Divine Purgatory

Ilais had been tied up in her own bandages, her arms and legs twisted together and held by two very muscular soldiers, a Transylian named Nimdok, and the Loboan who stepped on her, called Lukaro. Undyyne unlocked her seat's locking clamp and turned it around, interrogating their captive with a glowing spear aimed at her head. She reactivated the targeting system in her bionic eye, hooked up to her suit's subsystems for better accuracy.

"So tell us, warrior, why did you decide to sneak onto our ship? Our base's security could've caught you!"

"I...have the wrong ship," Ilais protested. "I was looking for that of your leader's.|

"Did you do this by yourself, or did someone order you to?"

"I would rather die than answer that question!" The dark-headed warrior shrieked.

Nimdok charged his electrical coils, one hand prepared to send the current onto Ilais' body. He warned, "That can be arranged, my friend. But do you really want that?"

Ilais struggled against her bindings, resistant to so much as talk. That was when Nimdok noticed the gauntlet in her right hand. Examining it more closely, he could see that it clearly contained a holo-com inside.

"You DO have an accomplice, don't you?" He muttered.

Ilais just kept trying to escape, screaming, "I'LL! NEVER! TALK!"

"Nimdok, give her a taste," Undyyne commanded.

"With pleasure," the Transylian smirked as he touched two charged metal fingers to her body, green electricity arced across it – avoiding Lukaro across from him in the process.

Ilais struggled and groaned in pain over this torture method, but at the last minute, she shrieked, "Okay, I'll talk! I work for the pharaoh! He sent me to cripple the ship that Ben Tennyson was on, but I boarded the wrong one!"

Nimdok stopped zapping her, smirking, "That's better."

"Why d'you tamper with the cloaking device, then?" Undyyne interrogated.

"So the pharaoh would see your fleet coming. And he will, I know that much," Ilais stated with a sinister tone. "Once he sees your ship, his army will open fire upon you all."

"We'll see about that," Undyyne argued while turning her chair back around towards the console, locking it in place.

At the narrowest of possible moments, Undyyne sighted a missile headed for her ship, as did the pilot, and they swerved out of its path before the thing was mere feet from the bow of the craft. More missiles were launched, but Undyyne's internal targeting system allowed her to use the ship's turret to down the missiles before they hit her.

Her hand darted to the radio, "Hot-Ra, this is Starglider. Be advised: Our cloaking system is disabled, and the enemy fleet is likely to see us before we de-cloak. Recommendations?"

"I confirm, Starglider," Ja'Kaal responded. "All craft: Keep your shields at front and watch for enemy fire around the palace."

Rehk'Set watched as the one uncloaked ship fired its own missiles on the guards below, shooting down his missiles with its plasma turret.

"Nnnnggaaah! How dare they cheat our artillery?!" Rehk'Set snarled with rage.

He turned to his mage next to the throne, demanding, "Skaraab, is the final plan operational?"

"Yes, under the new site, but our scientists are still processing the appropriate target location on planet Earth," the purple-robed sorcerer answered. "By the way, director Shemay wanted me to give you your personal code sheet," he handed the pharaoh a small, thin scroll. "We will enter the launch code once the target is found, so we're entrusting you with the remaining codes."

"Thank you, my mage," Rehk'Set accepted the document, stuffing it into his robe. "How much longer must I wait? The power open to me is tantalizing!"

"We estimate the next seven hours, but an announcement will be made when we know for sure," the deep-voiced man stated.

Then a female Thep Khufan priest in white robes and a headdress based on Isis, approached the throne. She asked the pharaoh, "In the meantime, why don't you rest? You have been staring at this screen for hours. Trust me when I say that everything will come together by nightfall."

She stretched out one arm and tapped a button under the pharaoh's right hand, turning off the viewscreen.

Looking at the woman who did that, Rehk'Set almost wanted to scream, but decided that, unlike most people, priests were nothing to vent anger at, being one of the few closest to the gods, besides him.

He bowed his head and answered, "Yes, Hatshep. I am feeling rather weary, now that you mention it."

"Good. I will call some servants to come and bathe you, then we will see you to bed. You will be fine until dawn, I promise you that," she patted the pharaoh's shoulder.

With that, Hatshep led the pharaoh through a second set of doors to his quarters, and gave him privacy to change clothes while he waited for the servants in his personal bathroom.

His tiredness was not exaggerated in the slightest. Only now did Rehk'Set know that he needed sleep more than ever. His richly appointed sarcophagus beckoned, even now.

The line of souls took what felt like hours to pass. Both Gwen and Raht guessed that each one was being judged in the Hall of the Dead at the end for how they fared in life. Who knew how many were evil, how many of them good? What disturbed them more than most, however, was that a majority of the souls in line were the figures of very young Thep Khufans, no more than masks with spindly little limbs of bandages, almost like crabs. Both mortals could sense that these were the victims of that horrible, mysterious disease. All of them dead no more than a year into life. How could they explain themselves to Osiris without the means to speak properly?

Eventually, they watched each soul pass, entering the temple but never leaving. From what Gwen remembered about her knowledge of Egyptian mythology, there were only two outcomes in there: Either they moved onto the afterlife, or ended up eaten by the creature Ammut. But the question on her mind was: If this was the underworld that ancient Egyptians always spoke of, why did it have connections to this planet as well? Was there a mutual link?

Trying to break the fear, Gwen casually muttered to Raht, "Say, I think Ben said he wanted to tell you that there's a lot of strange stuff in fiction about Egypt."

"Oh? Like what?" Raht asked with curiosity, eager to stop thinking about these dead people.

"Like a book about a museum where things come alive because of some pharaoh's magic tablet, or another where gods live in the human world as people because the world's going to end if two god-hosting-kids don't save it," she listed off examples.

"How curious," Raht rubbed his wrapped chin. "Considering where we are, perhaps what lays inside may prove that fiction as fact?"

"Who knows?" Gwen shrugged. "I just hope they can help us fight the pharaoh or something."

"Me too, little girl," he sighed, bowing his head. "Me too."

Gwen and Raht could feel more souls arriving behind them, chattering like a normal crowd would be on the surface, but some of them were moaning and wailing in despair over their death, probably murder or sickness victims. The cacophony of noise it all made was unreal, a noise no human should've had the burden of hearing. The voices were overlaid with an ethereal, echoing tone common to ghosts in movies, as if the noise was drifting in and out of phase with audible sound waves. Raht tried to relax with the hindsight that these were real, innocent souls of the dead, not malicious blobs of protoplasm like the Ectonurites.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they arrived at the door of the building. More souls were lined up against a large dais with a huge set of scales between them and several strangely headed people. Anubis was on the left; a man with an ornate Atef crown, green face, and holding a crook and flail, had to be Osiris. The third was a woman with long dark hair and an elaborate set of wings attached to her arms, probably Isis. Off to the far left, holding a tablet and stylus was the unmistakably distinct figure of Thoth. Across the room from that was the war god Horus. Finally, behind this tribunal of gods, barely visible at the back of the room, stood the similarly bird-headed sun god, Ra, watching over everything. However, unlike the depictions from Egypt, none of these figures looked human, rather appearing similar to Thep Khufans in stature, yet their bandages were colored in accordance with each person's body, and lacked a glow beneath them.

Below the scales stood a ferocious-looking crossbreed of a dog and crocodile, no doubt Ammut. All the gods were clustered together in a horseshoe formation, giants towering over everyone else in the room, their Thep Khufan figures faintly visible.

Gwen had a bad feeling about what these people would say when it was her and Raht's turn. What would gods say to living mortals in this realm?

Ben tried to keep as stealthy and casual as possible in the upper hallway. Guards were patrolling the place back and forth. Columns inlaid with hieroglyphs were all capped with a metal ball depicting the eye of Horus, some of which Ben could unmistakably see were moving back and forth like a security camera. He tried to make sure to move when they weren't pointing at him, and kept his Omnitrix symbol out of sight, for he knew from experience that that would give him away at any moment.

Following Rel'Hathor's directions, Ben gently stepped down the corridor past two doors, one of them reading "GUARD ROOM", another across from it labeled "ARMORY". As he turned the next corner to the left, Ben stopped dead at the sight of two guards in heavy armor, a Florauna and a Tetramand. How did the pharaoh get these aliens, let alone enlist them as his personal guards?

The tetramand shouted, "You! What are you doing up here? This area belongs to the pharaoh!"

Trying to think of something to say, Ben thought up an excuse on the fly, "I...I was going to bring him clean clothes for tomorrow, but I can't find the right room to get them from."

Surprisingly, this worked, and the florauna directed him, in a clearer voice than Ben's own form, "You will find them at the end of the hall, dead ahead."

"Thank you."

"Now move, servant!" The tetramand yelled.

As Ben shuffled off towards the designated room, he mentally asked himself, "Do I really sound that harsh as Fourarms?"

Passing two Thep Khufan soldiers in blue robes and gold headdresses similar to Ja'Kaal's, Ben found the door he needed at the end of the hall, a wooden door marked "LINEN ROOM".

Opening it, he found a walk-in closet with dozens of outfits, each one tagged and assigned to a certain person. Checking each one, Ben found a long black robe near the front, its tag simply reading "Pharaoh, 19th Day." Removing it from its hanging bar using his powers, Ben folded the cloak as cleanly as he could, holding it with both hands as he carefully closed the door and tried the guarded room again.

"Good, you may enter," the Tetramand nodded as he reached for the door with one of his lower arms, while the Florauna warned, "But do not disturb the pharaoh. He is sleeping at the moment."

"I understand, sir," Ben nodded as he stepped through the open door.

Ben happened to enter a room lit entirely in dim red light, giving the room an ominous feel, accentuated when the door loudly shut behind him. On one wall was a large flat slab of stone that Ben could swear was a flat-screen monitor, something he hoped his parents could buy him at some point. Across from it, in the middle of the marble room was a small throne with a side table holding a radio-like device. Near the wall with the monitor was a strange flat machine with a wire coming out of it, which Ben didn't want to take interest in. Behind the throne, flanked by columned marble busts of the pharaoh, was another set of double doors, probably leading to the pharaoh's bedroom. He placed the new cloak in a drop box embedded in the wall next to those doors, as a sign overhead instructed. Realizing that the pharaoh would likely come out of this room if Ben screwed up, he used his enhanced strength to push the two busts in front of both doors, tying the handles of each together with his tensile bandages, and using more to jam the gap between the doors and the floor.

Finally, at the far end of the room, between a bookshelf of scrolls and a desk with blank papyrus still on it, an odd, dark machine glowed in stripe-like spots with an eerie red light, brighter than the room's illumination, almost like something the Empire from Star Wars would build. He could hear a low, steady hum coming from it as he approached.

Checking that no one was watching, Ben inspected the device more closely, crouching down to get a better look at it. The only thing noticeable about this contraption was a small panel hiding a control system inside.

Opening it, on the control panel was a small display showing pulsing red bar graphs of the energy it was generating to create the huge shield, followed by various knobs and buttons, but the thing he most sought, however, was its power switch, shown as a bright red knob at the very bottom.

For a moment, Ben asked himself, "Why leave this thing unprotected? Shouldn't there be a lock or something?" Then he figured that since this pharaoh wasn't in his right mind, Ben chalked it up to the man not putting enough care into security.

With one faint click of the knob, Ben deactivated the machine, watching all four bar graphs abruptly drop to zero, the red light fading as he shut the access panel, the hum steadily dropping in pitch and volume as the thing powered down. He felt like Obi-Wan Kenobi doing this, somehow. Just in case someone might turn it back on, Ben noticed a thick cable running from it to some outlet, and, sighting a strange Egyptian sword on one wall, grabbed that with his elasticity and used it to sever the cable so that it couldn't be reconnected, keeping the sword close as a possible weapon.

Now all that remained was to either get out of the palace or contact the Hot-Ra. Realizing that radio could be of use, Ben suddenly found himself with an idea. Sitting down in the throne, he tapped a button on one arm to activate the screen, showing the Starglider far in the distance behind the rest of the invisible fleet. Ben tuned the radio, trying to find Ja'Kaal's link. Surely the pharaoh would be spying on communications like that? Then he happened to catch his voice cheering, "-units, this is Hot-Ra, the barrier is down! Uncloak and open fire on all enemy forces, we are going down to breach the palace!"

On the screen, one by one, all the ships disabled their cloaking devices, the Hot-Ra leading the fleet. Plasma bullets rained down on the guards below, though he couldn't see them from this angle.

All of a sudden, alarms started blaring in the room, sensors in the room having scanned his body and noticed the Omnitrix symbol Ben forgot to keep covered when he sat in the throne. A female computer voice droned, "WARNING: Primary target detected in pharaoh's quarters. Primary target in pharaoh's quarters."

Thinking fast, Ben reached for a microphone connected to the radio, held down the talk button and called, "Ja'Kaal? Ja'Kaal, do you read me? This is Ben, calling from the palace!"

"Ben, is that you? You sound different, over," the commander responded with concern."

"Yes, I'm in another form. Listen, alarms are going off and people are coming, where are you?"

"We're landing as I speak. We'll be entering the palace and get you out as soon as possible, over,"

"Copy, Where do I go?"

"Just get to the throne room, it should be on the ground level. We'll find you, I promise!"

"Will do, Ben out."

As Ben set down the mike, he sprang from the chair and ran to the outer doors. Ben could hear the doors to the pharaoh's room straining and creaking as he banged on them and struggled with the handles.

Without time to be sneaky, Ben wrenched the outer doors open and took off in a sprint for the stairs, alarms still wailing in the hall. Every guard in the area took off in his direction. With an elastic swing, Ben whipped around the doorway into the spiral staircase he came from.

As he reached the bottom, Ben almost ran over none other than Captain of the Guard, Drexel.

"I don't know how you broke into the palace, but this is the end for you, intruder!" he grunted, forming one of his arms into a tapering sword blade.

Remembering the sword tucked into his bandages, Ben readied the weapon with his right hand, and shouted, "En garde, then!"

As the Hot-Ra and the rest of the fleet landed in front of the palace, the flagship first to do so, Ja'Kaal looked back towards Max in one of the seats behind his and Marnor's, and reminded him as he powered down the ship, plasma fire still raining overhead, "Do you have your weapon, Max?"

Grandpa Max stuttered for a moment, then admitted, "Um...I don't recall being given one, no."

"You'll have to stay close to us, then."

"I can protect you, sir," Elastamun offered.

Neferti giggled, then added, "Do not fret, Marnor, Ja'Kaal, Raht, and I have a special secret...to coin a phrase, up our sleeves."

"And what's that?" Max asked.

"It is, in a way, similar to your grandson's power of transformation. Watch!" Marnor stated, excited over what was to come next.

All three golden warriors simultaneously shouted, "With the strength of Ra!"

Their figures were suddenly cloaked in blue, purple, and red light that lit the cockpit with the brightness of a sun, and would've been seen if not for the one-way coating on the canopy's exterior. Max and Elastamun gazed in awe as visions of a falcon, cat, and ram enveloped the three Thep Khufan warriors like in an old anime transformation sequence.

Then the light faded, and now the Golden Guard leaders were true to their name, wearing armor decorated in elaborate Egyptian, pharaoh-like patterns themed after their various animal motifs. Elastamun in particular was dumbstruck at Neferti's attractive cat-themed armor attached to her red jumpsuit; clawed knuckle dusters now strapped to her fingers, a helmet enclosing her head in the shape of her associated cat motif. If the scribe hadn't found this woman attractive before, this version of her certainly was.

Ja'Kaal hit the canopy switch, mounted his bow and quiver of arrows onto his back, stood up from his seat, and screamed, "CHARGE!"

The whole group jumped from the hovership, leading the throng of resistance soldiers as they stormed the palace. Ja'Kaal made quick work of shooting down the snipers on the roof, several Loboans blew away enemy guards with sonic howls, Transylians used their electricity to shock enemy soldiers through their metallic armor. Undyyne threw dozens of energy spears, Worlock and other magically gifted beings combatted enemy sorcerers, Neferti, Elastamun, and many native Thep Khufans used their natural elasticity to trap, ensnare, toss, and otherwise incapacitate their foes. Despite there being less than a hundred soldiers, the event was so powerful it almost felt like the whole planet was converging on this palace of evil. Without the shield, even as species not native to this planet, Rehk'Set's soldiers were no match for this wave of resistance. The sheer determination to fight this foe, hated by all but those close to him, was so staggering that the guards simply couldn't stand their ground to this militia.

Raht nearly jumped out of his bandages when he noticed that the soul next to be judged, which he couldn't quite discern until now, was the pharaoh's vizier.

Just after Anubis ushered this soul to the front of the room, before the scales, He heard Osiris speak, discussing Valensen's former life, and, reading from a scroll passed by Thoth, testing him on whether or not his own sins were true. Valensen answered each question with a burning honesty, as if he knew Osiris would do this ahead of time. Finally, the headed gods placed his heart on one side of the giant set of scales, the feather of Ma'at on the other, and watched as the scales moved, a needle at the top depicting what the result would be.

But at the last moment, Osiris leaned forward slightly and stated, in a voice that nearly overpowered all else in the room, "What are these mortals doing in the Hall of Judgement?" The scales were still frozen as if locked in place.

Raht answered immediately, "Great lord, we have come to convey news from the living world."

"What would merit such importance as to interrupt our judging of the dead?" Osiris demanded impatiently.

Valensen bowed his head and admitted, "Though I have proven my innocence, I know the reason for their presence."

Isis ordered, "Such a matter must be shown, not told, Osiris."

"Very well, sister," the god agreed with annoyance. Osiris first waved his hands as if commanding an orchestra to stop, rather freezing time itself instead, then used his crook to fire a beam of light at Valensen. From his head, a projection filled the room, showing his memories of the past. Thoth analyzed those memories, and scanned the footage for what he meant, then stopped on his vision on the transhuman slaves.

Thoth nodded, writing on his tablet, and turned his head towards Gwen and Raht, asking in a smooth, calm and understanding voice, "Do you know something of this soul's visions that we do not?"

Gwen quickly answered, "The pharaoh is behind what's happening, he took humans from my world – Earth, and made those slaves out of them. And he's going to keep doing it unless we stop him!"

Raht continued, "The pharaoh in question is insane and driven to complete this mission, even if it means sacrificing humans to gain more of my kind."

"I have been a witness to these horrible acts, time and time again," Valensen admitted, "And when I enlisted help to change the tide, the pharaoh had me burned alive as punishment."

The gods hesitated for a moment, then Osiris dictated, "The gods do not intervene in the matters of the living unless Ma'at is in danger."

Raht argued, "When did you last do that? We were at war with another alien species until no more than thirty years ago! Surely, our loss of physical religion did not hinder you in that regard?"

From behind, Ra intervened. He spoke, in a deep male voice both intimidating and understanding, "Both of your races have suffered much, and both have changed many times. To ask for our aid, you must first understand that from which we have come."

The entire Hall of Judgement vanished into a black void, and the gods now stood as a group, together. Then, suddenly, all of them transformed. Their lanky, Thep Khufan features gave way to perfect, healthy human bodies, an exact match to their depictions in Egyptian murals.

Thoth recited, "We are known as Amun Khufans."

Isis continued, "It was we who blessed both them, and your species with the gifts of enlightenment." She waved her hand, and the blackness faded to a strange sight. Below Gwen and Raht was a vista of ancient Egypt in its heyday, strangely like Gwen's dream from last night. Following the blue sky, above, upside down hung a similar scene on Anur Khufos, from long before the attack of the Ectonurites.

The gods themselves spread out to the sides of the scene, between both desert environs.

Ra continued, "Born from our celestial parents of Nut and Geb, mother of stars and father of earth, we began as the first species on Anur Khufos, and the second honored us for the gifts we gave them."

The witnesses watched, finding the inverted terrain tilting forwards into full view, as the Thep Khufans bowed to smaller versions of these gods, building temples and statues in their image, and constructing buildings from the dirt and sand, living off the plant life and fish from the various rivers and lakes. Food was brought into the temples in bowls and pots, and the dead were buried with their possessions for the afterlife.

Isis followed, "For thousands of years, it was good. Our children nourished us with offerings, and prayers and depictions honored our divine existence. Some chosen kin were even granted the ability to manipulate the streams of mana that bind the universe as one."

Thoth added, "Then, one day, we heard the cries of another species on a world across the galaxy: Earth."

The view flipped around like a hand mirror, to show the aerial view of Egypt.

Osiris dictated, "Although many races on this planet were growing, one such people could not survive without our help. So, in exchange for worship, we gifted them, too, with the knowledge to thrive in the deserts of what you call, 'Egypt'."

"But because of the...fragile nature of human minds," Thoth pointed out, "We took on forms that matched that of their kind, as you see before you,"

The gods appeared in front again, showing their human features.

"We ruled peacefully over both worlds for a time, through a mental link to a chosen being on each, the 'pharaohs', to teach them," Ra described.

Thoth continued, "They lived in a copy of our species' culture, and called it 'Egypt'. Their dead were even prepared in a similar way to Thep Khufans, for in the afterlife, all burdens are lost. That afterlife - to humans - was our world, and after death, if they were good, some could reincarnate among our children.

Raht suddenly reminded himself to research this fact later.

Then Ra shifted to a dark tone, "Then, after centuries of prosperity...chaos struck."

The whole vista shifted to show Anur Khufos and Earth befalling a disaster. On the former, like Ben's nightmare, the planet turned dark, the Ectonurites swarming the planet and waging war on the Thep Khufans. The blue sky was replaced with a thundering cloudscape, lightning cracking all around. Meanwhile, on Earth, different city-states and foreigners were battling each other for power, struggling to have one belief over the other.

"Set, my brother," Osiris described, "Decided that we were too good for either of these planets, and sought to destroy them both from within."

The vision shifted to show a glowing red Amun Khufan, with an aardvark's head, whispering into Zs'Skayr's ear and manipulating his army like strings on a puppet into enslaving the entire Anur system. Likewise, this alien, now in human form, brainwashed various pharaohs and military leaders into attacking each other with their fanatic armies.

"He wanted to watch everything built for us, to crumble...into nothing," Horus piped up for the first time.

"Set was so powerful that he banished all of us to another reality, that where the dead go to rest: the Duat." Osiris continued. "We were imprisoned there, so that we could not aid either the Thep Khufans or humans. He swindled me into giving up the throne of space and time to allow this to happen, shattering my body to pieces in the process."

"The conflicts on the two worlds came and went, with some cultures still sustaining us with prayers and tributes, but we could not speak to them from the Duat," Thoth sighed, "The psychic link was blocked, leaving us helpless to watch the worlds grow without our guidance."

"But then," Horus grunted with vigor, "After centuries of our struggling to reason with Set, I stood up and took it upon myself to challenge him for the throne and end this needless destruction!"

In the vision, Horus grew to a huge size and grabbed Set's devlish figure by his native bandages, and they engaged in a duel with each other. This was mirrored by the armies of Mentuhotep II pushing back the people of Lower Egypt and struggling to conquer that part of the country, and soldiers on Anur Khufos trying to fend off the Ectonurites. Then, Set ripped one of Horus' eyes out with his bare hands, just after Horus ran Set through the groin with an enchanted dagger. Despite being half-blind, Horus grappled with the evil god and managed to get the upper hand, when suddenly the stolen eye vanished, and Thoth broke the fight to mediate the two gods and form a truce, said eye having empowered the scribe god to be able to do so. The scene changed again to a timelapse scene of the two gods being judged by Osiris over who more rightly deserves the throne.

"Eventually, Set bowed to our will," Osiris narrated, "and we were released to the physical world again...but it was not the same as we had left it."

"When we returned, for a time things returned to the way they were, but as more centuries wore on, the people of Egypt soon lost the understanding of their culture, and eventually, were consumed by enemies." Ra dictated, "And as for our kin, Set's mark had been made on our planet and all the others, the enslavement of our home . We had little to return to."

The strange scene now showed the whole Anur system enslaved by the ghosts, and Egypt nearly destroyed from outside attacks, while Greece and other cultures flourished. Libraries and temples burned to the ground, recorded Egyptian knowledge lost to the sands of time, tombs looted and vandalized.

Raht spoke up, "Wait, this makes no sense! How could you be so reluctant to just...return and fix it all again? You are GODS!"

"Because it turned out that we were not alone," Thoth waved his stylus, showing various humanoid aliens that morphed into the shapes of Greek deities, Mayan, Chinese, Hindi, and more. The feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl arriving in a Mayan city; Ancestral offshoots of multiple aliens teaching the Greeks a better way of life; a glowing man appearing as Shiva."

"Others had come to teach humanity where we left off, and our ways were no longer known by the masses. Humans, lost in their pride for violence and power...had forgotten us." Isis bowed her head, on the verge of crying.

"We had tried to maintain balance with humans through the link with the pharaohs, but even they stopped caring over time," Osiris continued, ". And with our own home's culture in disarray, our influence there was weak as well."

Ra stated, "So, after a long time of pondering, I consulted our mother, Nut, and she understood our plight. We sought advice to, as you say, 'fix it all again', and this is what she said."

Thoth added, "Nut advised us that she had sighted the presence of a device of great power across the galaxy, a power that would spell doom in the wrong hands."

"The Omnitrix," Gwen gasped.

"So you know of this, too," Horus judged.

"Soon, we came together to decide on how to solve this terrible problem," Thoth continued, "And it was decided that we had to remove the creatures that enslaved our home system. Even Set agreed to this."

Gwen felt excited, knowing that pieces were coming together.

"Now that we were no longer constrained by the Duat, we could potentially return to Anur Khufos at will, but the...phantoms enslaving it made that difficult. Nonetheless," Isis explained, "I disguised myself as a bird and whispered to him that the device existed, and his greed for power was so great that he dropped all and fled the planet in search of it."

"As for the rest of his kind," Ra finished with an air of pride, "Set and I drove them away, destroying their clouds of darkness so that they could not hide from our sun chariot."

Gwen and Raht watched with awe as the sun rose over Anur Khufos, and Ra's glowing boat cut through the Matrix clouds like the sword of light it was. Several Ectonurites screamed and writhed in agony, some dying from exposure, the rest fleeing off-world. The sight was like a blood stain being cleaned from a piece of clothing, or a tumor being removed from a body. Anur Khufos was free again, and the former slaves cheered in reverence.

"So, our planet was reclaimed, but Earth can never again know of our existence. Not with how much it has changed in comparison," Horus sighed, waving his hand to speed up the two planets. "Only thing we have not yet done is restored the link of telepathy, and we felt that our kin needed time to recover before then."  
The vista cut back to Earth and Anur Khufos in daylight. The former, ancient Egypt was now the Earth of 2005, modern cities and society gleaming in sunlight. Anur Khufos, with its technological integration in full swing with the ancient traditions, as little as there were. Sounds and videos filtered in of conspiracy theorists, urban legends, and warped Christian beliefs about aliens and Jesus Christ. Likewise came visions of the ominous Horus drones, exploiting the story of his lost eye to warped proportions; The rumor of the Omnitrix made religious, and Rehk'Set's distorted "mummification" process.

Gwen gasped, "It all makes sense! No wonder people think you guys were myths! If you did come back today, people would freak out and try to kill you instead."

Osiris shifted the discussion, "But, now, as you say, things have changed."

The gods examined Earth, filtering in broadcasts of disappearances in Egypt and around the globe, along with watching Elastamun roaming the town on his research mission, while one Thep Khufan after another emerges from the palace complex on Anur Khufos to build more structures.

Finally, everything faded back to the Hall of Judgement, the souls of the dead still temporally frozen until their turn came.

Osiris concluded, "So, the story you have brought to us confirms that Set is on the rise once more, and has used the pharaoh 'Rehk'Set' to do so. I surmise Set has grown bored with this idle period of inactivity and done this as a result." He waved his arms again, time resumed, and the scales hung evenly. The gods bowed for a moment, and Osiris judged the ghost of the vizier, "Valensen, thank you. You have proven yourself, and are indeed worthy of the afterlife. Although you served an agent of Set, your valiance in turning the tides against him have earned you this gift of vindication. Go now, and may your existence prosper for ever more."

Valensen bowed, "My deepest of thanks to you, O God of Nature." And with that, the vizier looked back one last time, and asked, "Gwen Tennyson, before I go, could you deliver a message?"

"What's that?" The girl timidly asked after all this.

"Tell Elastamun that my death was not in vain, and that his knowledge of humans will go to a greater cause in the future. Just that."

"All right, I'll...try to remind him." the girl replied with hesitation.

Then with a single smile, the ghostly vizier looked away, uttered a single, "Goodbye," then vanished.

Knowing that these two mortals were holding up the line, Thoth concluded, "It will take time to assess this turn of events, but we will search for a means to combat this new threat."

Ra finished, "In the meantime, return to your world so that you may delay him until then." And with that, Gwen and Raht were hit by a beam of light from the sun god's eyes, and for a moment were surrounded by whiteness. When the light faded, they were standing inside the palace's throne room, witnessing the ongoing battle between the resistance and the pharaoh's forces.

Actions


	15. Operation Xenomorph

As the freedom fighters stormed into the palace, fighting and firing upon anyone who stood in their way, the Golden Guard elite sighted Gwen and Raht in the middle of the throne room.

Elastamun had been given a khopesh sword like the one Ben stole, and some basic armor to cover his body. Despite this, the scribe had kept close to Neferti, whose magically augmented armor and weapons kept the group's 6-o'clock secure.

Ja'Kaal turned to Undyyne nearby and ordered her, "Undyyne, take the Starglider's crew through those doors at the far end, and look for anything that might be a cure to this sickness," the commander directed. He turned to the old, black-bandaged wizard and added, "And Worlock, go with her team, I have a feeling magic might have something to do with that scheme."

"You got it, commander," Undyyne smirked.

"Very astute, my lord," Worlock agreed.

"My team and friends will tend to the Tennysons. We will not be long. Now, move in!"

As the combat group of seven charged through the doorway next to the throne, shooting down Thep Khufan guards as they went, and several other attack groups swarmed into the palace proper to go after other guards and secure parts of the building, Ja'Kaal's team reunited with their separated members. He ordered the party to move east into a side hallway, so as to avoid the loud sounds of gunfire and shouting, echoing in the vast room.

"Gwen, Raht, thank the gods you arrived!" Neferti expressed with relief as they moved into the quiet space, the intruder alarms long since silenced.

Grandpa Max came forward and hugged her granddaughter for a moment, "Where did you two go off to?"

"The underworld, basically," Gwen answered. "Even saw the Egyptian Gods, which apparently came from this planet."

Raht changed the subject in haste, "I say, has anyone seen your grandson of late?"

Ja'Kaal answered, "I heard his voice on my quantum comm channel, though it seems he has changed forms. My only guess from his transmission is that he is probably on his way down here as we speak."

"What happened?" Raht inquired.

Marnor informed him, "He disabled the shield all right, but it feels like every guard in this place is after him."

"I had best don my armor then," Raht figured before shouting "With the strength of Ra!" like the others, vanishing in a blast of green light before returning wearing golden armor in the form of a large cobra, the mouth surrounding his head as a helmet.

"Whoa, I didn't know you could do that!" Gwen stated with a mix of surprise and admiration.

They all heard the sounds of metal clanging against crystal coming from a spiral staircase just up ahead.

The duel between Captain Drexel moved the two of them down the stairs to a hall on the ground floor. Ben could feel Undyyne's fierce words in his head as he tried to keep the battle in his favor.

"Give it up, chandelier!" Ben taunted between blows. "I've fought people like you before, and won!"

Drexel could see the tell-tale Omnitrix symbol, and knew that this was the pharaoh's target. He had already been instructed not to underestimate Ben, and so retorted, "Perhaps so, but I command a hundred soldiers that could crush you if I was given the order!"

Abruptly, Ben missed a couple of times, and on the second, Drexel's crystal blade swatted the sword out of Ben's hand, catching the boy off guard with a move he didn't predict.

Without it, Ben resorted to punching the captain's body with his elastic bandages, left and right, though Drexel's nigh-invulnerable body only made that hurt.

For his next trick, Ben fastened one tentacle to a torch bracket on a column, and used it to swing around and kick Drexel in the back, thrusting the bulky alien to the floor.

Just as Ben prepared for another tactic, Drexel jumped to his feet and kicked Ben's hollow form in the torso, warping it from the blows but barely injuring Ben. Then the mummy lashed out with both hands and proceeded to wrap the captain in bandages, poetically fitting like how the guard tried to ensnare Ben while he himself was this same Diamondhead form.

Unfortunately, irony reared its ugly head yet again, for Captain Drexel managed to break one arm free of his bindings and turn it back into his makeshift sword. Remembering his training again, Ben expanded his body wider so that the sword's blows passed through the wider gaps between his bandages, whilst still keeping a grip on the captain with both arms. He kept stretching his fingers and chest bandages, piling on more and more bandages to reinforce and tighten this organic cocoon. Surely now, this would be the perfect application of this rarely-used form?

But then Captain Drexel screamed, "ENOUGH!", sprouting crystals that shredded his bindings as he rose back upright, broken appendages sprinkling the floor. Rage in his yellow eyes, he swung back his sword with all his strength, snarled, "The pharaoh shall have your HEAD!" and swung it towards Ben's neck, the exact same move Elastamun told Ben to use on the guard. But just before the blade made contact, he stopped upon hearing the Omnitrix's timeout sound, and with a flash of red light, Ben was back to his human form again.

The captain grumbled, "Or...perhaps not?" Then, using his other hand, Captain Drexel grabbed Ben by his shirt collar, and stared at him for a moment while deciding what to do with him.

Then, down the stairs came a tall, lanky Thep Khufan wearing a dark purple robe with a flared circular collar, a large violet Egyptian headdress, and holding a long golden staff topped with the head of a cobra. For a second, Ben assumed the pharaoh had hired Jafar, but this guy was wearing too much purple to be that character.

Captain Drexel noticed this man and reported, "Great Skaraab, I have apprehended the intruder."

"Thank you, Captain," the man nodded, "Go see to your troops at the front gates. I will handle this being...myself."

"As you wish," the Captain of the Guard saluted before disappearing down an adjacent corridor.

"Shouldn't we be firing?" Marnor asked with eagerness down the hall and around a corner, out of earshot of this new being.

"Not without my command," Ja'Kaal ordered. "For now, we must wait."

Neferti kept her eyes trained on the opening to the throne room. No one was coming from that end, given the attack going on down that way.

Skaraab spoke, his voice tinged with evil almost as potent as the pharaoh's, "So, Ben Tennyson, in the flesh. I must say...how disappointing it is to see that our lord's adversary is a life form so primitive and so young." He paused, then smiled, "But I will give you credit: It was quite clever of you to use the Omnitrix to disguise yourself as one of our species. Therefore, rather than killing you here, I shall deliver you to the pharaoh, myself. I hear he has...plans for you." He punctuated his sentence with a deep cackle.

"Weapons ready, people!" Ja'Kaal ordered.

"Let the boy go!" Ben heard a crowd's voice shout from one end of the hall. He peeked past the sorcerer's head to notice all four of the newly empowered Golden Guard leaders, plus Gwen, Grandpa Max, and Elastamun, all prepped for battle a few feet down the hall.

"Whoa, nice outfits!" Ben complimented the group, trying to make light of the situation.

Skaraab paid this resistance group no mind, as he walked off in the other direction, carrying the boy over his shoulder.

"Guys, help!" the boy shouted in fear.

"Advance and fire!" Ja'Kaal ordered, firing his arrows.

Everyone took off in a sprint down the hallway, weapons blazing. Unfortunately, Skaraab stepped through a door off to the right while tossing something back through it as it shut.

Clattering to the floor, it happened to be his gold cobra staff, which morphed into a very real, living cobra, hissing and rearing up to attack.

Max tried to shoot it with plasma rounds, but he had to switch magazines, an annoying drawback not helped by this advanced tech.

The snake jumped towards Max's face, but one of Gwen's spells managed to freeze it in mid-air. Then it changed tactics by spitting literal balls of fire at the battle group, catching Elastamun and Marnor in flames.

Ja'Kaal shouted "Advance! Find whatever you can and smother that fire before it spreads!"

The two Thep Khufans sprinted up the hall, scrambling to snuff out the fire. Turning one intersection, they happened to see a bright red canister marked "Emergency Fire Suppressor". Using his metal arm, Marnor ripped the thing from its housing and pulled the trigger, first on Elastamun's body, and then letting him do the same for Marnor.

The snake struggled to escape Gwen's magic bindings, but Max managed to get his gun reloaded and shot the thing nearly point blank in the head. Strangely, it disintegrated on contact, despite this kind of weaponry only leaving burn marks on other tagets. What was that thing?

Nonetheless, with that threat gone, Ja'Kaal commanded, "Onward, time is running out!"

As the Golden Guard charged down the hallway, Elastamun and Marnor wiped themselves clean of foam and rejoined the group, and the former warned, "We need to find Ben, and fast! Who knows what the pharaoh wants with him?"

Max pointed out, turning to his left, "I think that man took him through here," he pointed to an ornately decorated set of double doors on one side of the hall. Judging from the small set of buttons and meter at the top, this was apparently an elevator, probably reserved only for high-ranking people.

Max examined the controls and noticed it required a code.

He turned around and sighed, "I have a little gadget that can crack keypads on home, but I have a feeling it won't work here.

"Let me try," Raht offered while pulling an amulet out of his armor's belt. Holding it out to the panel, a massive surge of magical energy flowed into the panel, overloading the security lock holding it shut. Electricity arced from the panel, then with a "Ping!", the elevator arrived and opened its doors.

Gwen asked with surprise, "How did you do that?"

"I have worked with magical amulets for a long time in the Guard, and their inner energy can be tapped for things from creating our armor and strength, to power sources. However, they can be dangerous if their energy is too great for the system." He noticed that his techno-babble was going over the humans' heads, then cleared his throat, "In other words, I used an amulet to overload this lock."

"Okay...I'll buy it," Gwen shrugged.

"We are wasting time!" Elastamun protested.

"I agree," Ja'Kaal muttered. "Let's move!"

The group piled into the lift and selected a floor to which they suspected Ben had been taken: The roof, considering other troops had the lower levels covered.

Meanwhile, the Starglider's crew and Worlock were sent off in search for a cure to the sickness, finding themselves in another wing of the palace. The stairs led down one level to a rough-cut stone corridor with cramped, branching passages. Two other combat groups had gone ahead of them to free any prisoners in the dungeons, elsewhere in these hallways.

Following a map stolen from one of the soldiers, Undyyne led her troops into a side corridor that eventually opened into a large, sterile white room, with Transylians in protective clothing.

She spawned three energy spears and shouted, "Nobody in this room moves unless we say! Got it?"

The scientists cowered in fear, remaining still, their coils uncharged.

"That's right," She turned to her crew and commanded, "I'm taking point, follow me!"

The squad searched the room for clues, finding the place to be radically complex, even for an Egypt-like civilization undergoing the sweep of industry. Computers and holo-projectors lined a pair of walls, examination tables and advanced medical equipment on another, two heavily shielded rooms stood off to one side, one holding containers of refined corrodium, the other holding live samples of various microorganisms.

"Nimdok, what do you make of this?" Undyyne asked her fellow scientist.

"Whoever this pharaoh is must have had these Transylians, and who knows what else, doing his dirty work. Lemme check this terminal," he moved over to one of the computers, its translucent screen still on.

He found a menu of functions in his species' language, which Undyyne couldn't read. Finding it most pertinent, Nimdok used the gestural interface to scroll to an option marked "PROJECTS", and select it.

"Looks like these people were still logged in, no password necessary," Nimdok remarked.

"Lucky for us," Undyyne shrugged. She used hand signals to have her remaining troops sweep the rest of the lab for clues.

Under the Projects option was "Operation Xenomorph", and as he opened the file, Nimdok gasped, "Whoa...Undyyne, look at this," he tapped a side button that turned on one of the projectors.

The hologram displayed a number of items as he checked each one. A CGI model of an infant Thep Khufan, with a cutaway showing their organs and bone structures, neon lines leading to text cubes listing various medical jargon relative to them; followed by a closeup of a DNA helix. Then the projector shifted to a similar model of a human body, with similar data. After that, the two DNA strings were compared side by side, down to the base pairs.

"What is all this, doc?" Lukaro asked in confusion.

Nimdok continued examining the information, and explained, "This is some advanced genetics, but near as I can tell, they were developing some kind of artificial virus that renders Thep Khufans unable to survive without human hosts. In other words, the pharaoh engineered this to deliberately cripple his own kind!"

"I heard the pharaoh had a cure for the sickness," Lukaro muttered, "Now I can see why."

"But there's something...strange about this," Nimdok reviewed the data one more time, as he reached into his belt and inserted a card-like device into a slot to copy all this data for later. "The sickness is just one part of this plan."

The other troops searched the lab, finding an unconscious, dissected human on one of the tables, next to a skeleton strung up at the back as a model, more microscopes, sinks, burners, and various equipment on a long counter at the back below X-ray lightboxes and anatomy posters, and found a dozen green canisters on a long shelf, along with empty black ones near the back with warning labels similar to the universal "Biohazard" marker.

A Thep Khufan soldier examined one of the microscopes, showing a slide of what seemed to be human blood cells interacting with weak, infected Thep Khufan cells. That much he could gather, given how the human cells were red. It disturbed him to see how they seemed to merge together into healed Khufan cells.

"Come again?" Undyyne asked in slight confusion.

Nimdok continued, "Whatever this pharaoh was doing, the sickness was just one part. To actually make the crippled infant turn the human over, they had to use...refined corrodium as a catalyst and a little magic as an energy source to drive it."

The projector paralleled this, a model of a corrodium chip inserting itself into the human's chest as the TK mask latched to its head, glowing hieroglyphs appearing as if someone was typing them out, those symbols starting the transformation process.

"And now he's perfected this method so that he doesn't need to use existing Thep Khufan babies anymore. Which means..." he hesitated.

"What, Nimdok?" Lukaro asked with tension.

The scientist looked at parts of the file he glossed over before, "He now has a tool that can transform humans at will, just like the Omnitrix, and he could manufacture tons of them as he sees fit!"

The projector showed a spinning model of that evil mask used in the room below the temple.

"Wait...what's this?" Nimdok noticed another terminal down the wall, and stepped toward it, the download to the data card finished as he pocketed it.

On this screen was a file reading: "Operation Xenomorph, Phase 2 complete. Countdown to Phase 3 initiation: 01:17:32"

The timer on the screen continued to count down, second by second.

"Oh no, this...is bad," the scientist gasped as he stared at the screen.

Worlock interrupted, "People, we have trouble," holding his staff against the throat of one of the scientists, a scroll in his other hand. With nothing more capable of being done with the terminal, Undyyne and company broke from the console and joined the mage in the middle of the lab.

"I have been examining all records and reading the minds of these...henchmen, and it seems that the spell used to activate these sinister masks that transform humans, is so complex that even someone with my level of power cannot reverse it."

"What could, then? This is evil stuff!" Nimdok asked with concern.

Worlock hesitated, realizing how crazy his next words might sound to their ears, then answered slowly, "You probably won't believe me, but only a God could have developed something this advanced, and it would take just as much power to undo it."

"A...God?" Lukaro stammered.

"What're you talking about?" Undyyne added.

"I am serious, friends," Worlock insisted. Then the old Khufan turned around and ordered his prisoner, "Tell them, Jek'yll. I know you were close to the pharaoh!"

The female Transylian admitted, feeling burning pain from how the wizard had her restrained using invisible magic bindings, "That is not quite accurate, sir. We used texts preserved from the war that were a direct transcription of magic passed down from our Gods. The pharaoh ordered us to memorize and destroy them, and that we did. I wish we had not done so," She grunted from the pain, "So yes, the only other option would be to call upon the Gods; but the pharaoh would block that before you could even try."

"We will see about that," Worlock challenged, "The Golden Guard is already searching for him at this time." He hesitated, then added, "I can tell you do not wish to work for the pharaoh, so if I were you, I would have those antidote canisters delivered to our ships outside, NOW."

"Yes...if you would release me, I will proceed at once."

Worlock released his enchanted grip, and Jek'yll ordered the other Transylians, "We're delivering the antidote now! Stop whatever you're doing and start loading the vaccine for transport!"

Nimdok noticed a recess in the wall, and looked down at the data card in his pocket. "Undyyne, I have an idea!"

"Yeah? What is it, doc?" she asked with slight curiosity.

"If Ja'Kaal's people are upstairs, maybe I can send this data up to them," Nimdok explained as he approached the recess, pushing a button to call down what turned out to be a dumbwaiter that moved using suction like in old movies. "I have a feeling the people need to see what we found."

"Brilliant idea, Nimdok," Worlock commended the scientist. "How did you guess they were going that way?"

"Scientist's intuition," he just smirked while shoving the data card into the lift and pushing the "up" button twice.

Undyyne remembered something, then turned to her wolf soldier and asked, "Um, Lukaro, you secured Ilais, didn't you?"

The wolf soldier gulped in a panic, having forgotten about their prisoner when they landed. He'd been too caught up in the thrill of charging into battle that he wasn't sure if he used the right type of shackle when tying her to the ship.

"I'm...I don't think I did, ma'am," he stammered.

"Why, you brain-dead canine!" Undyne snarled. "Ja'Kaal gave us orders! And you can't even follow them?!" She grabbed him by the collar of his armor and started ranting like she did to Ben, "I trained Tetramands smarter than you! If it wasn't for me by your side, someone would've likely run a stake through your head before we even got close to this palace!"

"Be quiet, Undyyne! Shouting solves nothing!" Worlock reminded her. "Let me remind you that an insult like that is disrespectful to Loboans. Not all of them are sentient like our team members are."

Undyyne sighed, bubbles filling in her visor from the breath, and muttered, "Fine," while releasing her grip on Lukaro.

"Hehe, you know, Ilais wasn't very good at following the pharaoh's orders either, if she boarded the wrong ship," the Loboan tried to make light of this.

The scientists were loading the cure vials onto a hover cart, prepared to move it out of this room.

When the cart was full, the scientists at the ready, Undyyne cooled down, then ordered, "All right, let's move this stuff back to the ship."

And, protected by a force field, the cart of green vials was transported from the lab, under escort from Undyyne's crew. The countdown had less than an hour left.


	16. The Pharaoh's Audience

During the ride in an elevator adjacent to the one the resistance just used, Skaraab wrapped Ben in his tentacles to keep him from escaping.

Then the elevator stopped at a short hallway with a number of rooms left and right, and a door marked "Roof Access" between them, across from the elevator. Two other doors were marked "Security" and "Mage Room". This was one of the most secure areas in the entire palace, having no servant stairs in this area.

Skaraab waved an amulet in front of a lock at the center door, and it opened. Still carrying the struggling boy effortlessly, he stepped out onto the roof of the palace. The second lift sounded its arrival tone, but the door slammed shut just when Ben thought his friends were about to go after him.

The sky was dark red from the sun setting in the west, across the river in the dead lands like in Egypt. A figure was facing to the north, watching for something.

As Skaraab approached this figure, he spoke, "Pharaoh, I have brought your intruder. He cannot escape." The mage set the boy down, still wrapped up.

Pharaoh Rehk'Set turned toward the voice, and smiled, "Very good, my sorcerer. It pleases me to see that not all are poisoned with dissent like my so-called adviser was," he paused, looking at the wrapped boy, "Show me his head, I wish to speak to him personally."

"My lord," Skaraab bowed, before unveiling a dagger from his robe and cutting the bandages around his head.

"Ugh, thanks, I could hardly breathe back there," Ben grunted, still wrapped too tightly to reach his watch.

Up close, Rehk'Set's mask head was terrifying. It was dark red like the Ghost of Christmas Future, and warped in ways that Ben could swear resembled a human skull. His blood-red eyes glowed like those of a robot – menacing, relentless, and intimidating. Rehk'Set looked at the boy, studying his face, comparing it to the one he saw in the video he studied.

He rasped in a Harlan Ellison-esque voice, foul-smelling breath pouring from his mouth, "Well, well, well; the so-called 'being of a thousand beings' is here at last. A divine savior, sent by the Gods to liberate this planet. But could that really be so? You have raised the rabble from the sands to challenge me, slipped past my guards, even my spy could not give you away," he laughed, "Yet now, here you are, captured and wrapped like meat."

He held Ben's chin in one hand, staring at him more closely. Rehk'Set continued, "Ben Tennyson, wielder of the Omnitrix! A simple human being only elevated by a special device that lets you take the forms of other creatures for a set time limit! A crutch, to make you think you're better than other humans! Now tell me...Benjamin: Are you, really?"

"Sweep the area in case of enemies," Ja'Kaal ordered, taking point as the elevator opened. He proceeded to the center door and waited there in case anyone came out.

Marnor bashed the Security door open with his metal arm, making quick work of dispatching two guards by bashing their heads together, knocking the two of them out on the spot. Conversely, Neferti and Elastamun flanked the Mage room. She muttered to her friend, "Why don't you try opening this door? You are good at stealth," she chuckled.

"That is true, let me try," he offered while starting his cloaking device and stretching one hand under the gap.

Strangely, when he unlocked the door from the other side, no one was in that room. It seemed to be a sort of prayer room lined with scrolls, tapestries, amulets, potions and murals, but no one around. Carved reliefs of the Gods protruded from the walls.

"Whoever that purple sorcerer was can't be far away," Neferti suspected.

Giving up on that, they shut the door.

What caught the Tennysons' eyes was the sight of a small opening in one wall. Max approached it and found the silvery data card inside. "What's this?" he asked, examining it.

"Max, I think you should look at this," Marnor requested.

The grandfather and Gwen approached the open door, Ja'Kaal still guarding the roof entrance, eyes locked on the elevator; similarly, Neferti and Marnor stood guard outside the Security room.

As they entered, the Tennysons were surprised to see what looked like a control room. Several screens were built into the walls, surrounded by elaborate eye patterns like those on the drones, the corners covered by columns inlaid with patterns of small murals and hieroglyphs. Below were a number of control panels labeled in Thep Khufan language, and at the center wall, embedded in the panel, was another VR deck, complete with an attached set of dermal electrodes.

"Looks like a surveillance center," Max remarked.

Raht looked back at his teammates and suggested, "We'll work on this here, you take care of getting that door open."

"Agreed," Ja'Kaal nodded.

Raht then asked Max, "Can I see that thing in your hand, sir?"

"Sure, maybe you can make some sense of it," the old man shrugged as he handed over the card.

Examining the metal-silicon item, he realized, "This device is a cartridge for data storage. The Transylians taught us how to use these when they recently introduced us to electronics. I have a feeling that whatever is on this, someone on the resistance wants us to see it."

"I don't get it," Gwen commented. "I always assumed this planet was like old Egypt, but now you guys have tech even we don't have yet. It's just a strange contrast."

"I understand, young one," Raht explained, "But bear in mind that not all of us have access to this kind of technology; In fact, I would wager that the pharaoh has been hoarding most of this for himself. If one were to look around hard enough, some places are more traditional than others," he sighed, "What's left of the traditions, anyway. If only they knew," he trailed off while turning around.

Raht spotted three slots just its size in the middle panel, and inserted the cartridge into the topmost one; The center screen lit up with the contents of Operation Xenomorph displayed, translation software allowing the people to know what it said.

They reviewed all the data contained on the card, horrified by this secret to the pharaoh's scheme, finally revealed. Now that they knew this sickness was deliberate and synthetic, it put all of Elastamun's suspicions in a different, darker light, and only made the TKs hate Rehk'Set even more for causing this.

Then Elastamun suddenly had an idea, "This must be what the pharaoh was doing all along. We need to let the people know about it!"

Gwen asked, "I agree, but how?"

Raht stated, understanding Elastamun's suggestion, "If I know anything about Transylian machines, this kind of setup has to be a broadcast center for when they make announcements," he turned to Max and ordered, "Max, sit in front of that plastic slab over there, and place those wires on your forehead."

Max hesitated for a moment, then decided that there was no harm in it if it was an everyday thing to them. As he sat down and powered the deck on, Elastamun examined the left-side console and found, aside from a computer with surveillance controls, a camera and microphone suspended from the ceiling, probably linked to a hidden antenna somewhere. It reminded him of what he used to talk to Valensen on Earth.

As he jacked his brain into the network, Max could feel a rush like he'd never felt before, like he was leaving his body and flying into an entirely different, digital version of Anur Khufos, a wireframe mock-up of the entire country connected by circuit-like lines creating part of the communication network between locations. To him, this was a William Gibson idea made real. Alien cyberspace.

Seeing this view on one of the smaller screens, Elastamun searched for the deck's operating manual, found it in one of the drawers, and instructed Max to first select all the places he was to send this data out to, then grab the cube representing the data card and place it on the neon communication highway to upload it. As he did so, the lines turned white as it slowly uploaded itself to those places.

Just before his next action, the scribe suggested, "Raht, I think I can handle this from here."

"Very well, I'd best join the others anyway. This armor is not permanent, after all," the tactician agreed before leading Gwen out of the room.

Then, positioning himself at the left panel, Elastamun activated the camera and hit a transmit button for the public broadcast system.

All over the planet, the familiar horn noise blared over several alarm towers, and every screen and holo-projector sprang to life, conveying a TV-like logo showing a gold disc with the eye of Ra, and the words "The Pharaoh Speaks". But instead of the pharaoh, Elastamun's face cut into the feed.

Mustering the courage to speak on camera, he stated, "Attention, this is Elastamun, former scribe to the throne. The Golden Guard has unveiled the truth behind the disease that plagues our world. What you are about to see...may be difficult to swallow."

The scribe hit a few switches to splice the visual feed of all the files into the broadcast, while the data itself flowed into the various computer servers on the planet, to be studied by all who received it.

After a few minutes, Elastamun cut back in and continued, "We are working on bringing down the pharaoh, but please remain calm. If we succeed, you will all be free by morning. May the Gods aid our cause in this dark hour." Then he ended the transmission.

The scribe noticed one of the screens blinking "UPLOAD COMPLETE", considered something, then added, "Wait, I think I have a new plan.

"Where are you going with this?" Max asked.

The mummy tapped a few buttons to switch the human's view to that of one of four nearby drones; He showed Max how to control them by simply moving his hands around the deck. One by one, the silent divine cameras slid into place, all of them aimed at the palace.

Elastamun noticed something smack in the middle of the palace roof, and told Max to slowly move the drones closer, his mental avatar drifting slowly forward through the data toward the palace's virtual mockup.

"There he is, the pharaoh himself," Elastamun spoke slowly, staring at the monitor. "I have never been so fearful of our leader before." Remembering the next step, he instructed Max, "Lock the drones in place, we're close enough.

The elderly man dragged backwards on the deck, bringing them to a halt.

"Wait a minute, is that Ben?!" Elastamun gasped, seeing the shorter of two people next to the pharaoh, now that the view was more focused.

"What are we doing?" Max asked again.

"You'll see, I just need to do one more step!" the scribe claimed. Turning the broadcast system back on, he instructed Max to set the drones to start a live recording, then with a code from the manual and tapping a few buttons on the left console, Elastamun patched this alien equivalent of a "live-stream" into the global broadcast. With this action, everyone was now watching the pharaoh's monologue unfold all over the planet.

"There, you can take the electrodes off, Max," the scribe sighed as he entered another code to lock the panel so that this transmission couldn't be tampered with while it happened.

"Thanks," Max grunted while standing up, feeling a headache from that trip. "We'd better go see if Ben's all right," he jumped to the point.

"Right you are!" the mummy agreed before the two ran out of the room – Elastamun making sure to tie the handle shut with some of his bandages.

Ben was more afraid than ever, held at the mercy of a sorcerer and a psychopath. No one else was around to save him. He tried to think of something to say, but felt paralyzed at this moment. And considering how long he was in his last form, there was no telling what amount of time it would take for the watch to recharge again.

"Well, tell me, Benjamin!" Rehk'Set pressed him, "Are you truly better than other humans?"

Trying to fight off this fear, he stammered, "I...I've beaten monsters more powerful than you with my watch! I know because those monsters tried to kill me for it!"

"Of course they would, why would ANYONE care about someone so young and frail, when they could simply take your device for themselves?" he chuckled, "I have seen your 'heroics' on Earth, by the way."

"You have?" Ben gasped in surprise.

"Yes, I would say your defeat of Vilgax was impressive, but that would be undercutting the scope of the power that once brought this planet to its knees."

"What?" Ben asked in fright.

"Oh yes, I know the thing that once controlled us all. I grew up watching his rule, hidden away by my uncle so that I could not be controlled by that ruler. He was known as Zs'Skayr, do you know that name?"

Ben outright froze, for he knew the answer immediately. He tried to distract himself upon seeing two white spheres floating nearby, but far enough that the pharaoh didn't notice. Red lights blinked near the lenses that formed the pupils in those perverted, pseudo-divine floating eyes, and the only guess he could make was that someone had rigged them to film this monologue. He hoped his friends were watching, prayed that they could see just how evil this Thep Khufan really was.

The boy didn't want to answer, so he tried to lie, "No, I don't. I can't remember."

"Come now, I distinctly recall you giving him an alias, 'Ghost-freak'. Surely that rings a bell?"

Ben dodged the question, his determination rising, "Why do you want to know so badly?!"

"I have modeled my entire empire, my kingdom, my...planet, based on how he ruled. I loved how he controlled us, and how his species could never truly be destroyed. For decades, I have wished to tell him about my reign. I want to him to know of my accomplishments here." He looked down at Ben's torso, "And, if my research is correct, in order to do that, all you have to do is turn into his form!" Rehk'Set cackled as he commanded Skaraab to cut the bandages around Ben's left arm.

Rehk'Set was about to reach out and grab that arm, but stopped when he noticed the Omnitrix still glowed red.

"Oh, pity. I suppose we must wait then," the pharaoh sighed for a moment. Then he looked north again and smirked, watching stars appear in the night sky. "No matter, time is on my side!"

A hidden speaker in Rehk'Set's ear relayed the voice of the palace's computer, "Phase three deployment in: Thirty minutes."


	17. Hit 'Em Where They Live

The escaped fugitive, Ilais, had been covertly instructed to meet the pharaoh on the roof. She was to hide herself in the crowd and wait for an escort from the nearest guard.

As she walked through the throng of people in the throne room, Ilais noticed how the room resonated with the Pharaoh's voice, taunting and tormenting Ben. Listening to his rant over how he modeled his empire after Zs'Skayr's form of ruling, something she had never known until now, made her uncertain as to whether she should follow his orders.

Servants had stopped to watch, guards were distracted with fending off the resistance troops. Prisoners and the Transylian scientists were being escorted out of the palace, Undyyne clearing a path by warding off bystanders with her weapons. On the way, several doctors had personally cured the possessed humans, safely removing the young, newly healed Thep Khufans from their bodies, and gently removing the corrodium pieces from their chests, patching the gashes in doing so. As for the humans, all they could do was either pass out or groggily ask where they were, unable to speak the aliens' languages.

Rel'Hathor and Valerian had wandered from their posts to see this as well, in another wing of the palace.

"Look what you've done, Rel'Hathor!" Valerian shouted. "That little blab of yours caused this!"

"Valerian, think! The only reason that alarm would have alerted the pharaoh would be a mistake on the boy's part, I had only given him a suggestion, there was no guarantee it would go exactly as planned!"

The argument was cut off by a guard shouting, "What are you doing here? GET BACK TO YOUR DUTIES!"

Valerian suddenly snapped, her own warrior instincts kicking in, ripped off her robe, and shouted, "I will take no orders from one who follows a tyrant!"

"Disobedience is death, so you shall pay with your LIFE!" the guard readied his Ankh laser staff.

She whispered to Rel'Hathor, "Thinking of leaving this place once and for all?"

"Exactly that, my friend."

"I will protect you!"

The two gossipy servants broke off in a sprint while doing their best to avoid laser fire on the way out. Resistance soldiers noticed them and helped their cause.

Ilais watched this huge precession leaving the palace despite the dozens of soldiers blocking the way. What scared her more than anything was the video Elastamun broadcasted earlier, all those files revealing just how this sickness happened. It couldn't have been faked, she and her clan were there when they saw just how sophisticated and focused the Transylians were, only they could have made those.

Her pondering was interrupted by a guard approaching from behind. She turned around, and he ansked, "Excuse me, are you Ilais?"

She showed him her badge, and the guard nodded, "I was told to escort a woman with the sign of the Rigil clan directly to the pharaoh."

"Yes, but I wish to see him alone."

"Understood, please follow me."

At the same time, Mos Isis and other cities were alive with frantic activity. Citizens of all size and species suddenly stopped their duties and flocked to the streets to watch the pharaoh's actions.

"He has the savior! Apophis is nigh!" a priest cried.

"You and your superstitious nonsense!" A male shopkeeper shouted.

"How dare he put our lives in jeopardy like this?!" A woman growled.

The less advanced villages on the outskirts were panicking in fear of the pharaoh unleashing his soldiers on what few people were there, or even enslaving them. Being some of the few that didn't have those intrusive video monitors, the people in these areas could only speculate as to what was happening at the palace.

The entire social class was shaking with disarray, many people uncertain if the gods truly existed, and occasionally arguments broke out between those who believed and those who didn't, almost like human politics.

But the one thing everyone agreed on as they listened was certain: Pharaoh Rehk'Set would eventually destroy this planet if he wasn't stopped.

Ja'Kaal and his men had been trying to open the roof access door over the past 20 minutes, but some charm was keeping it from so much as denting without the key Skaraab used. Marnor rammed all his strength into it, but the door didn't even budge, and the seams of the frame were so flush tight with the door itself that there was no way for any Thep Khufan to simply slide through.

Then at the last minute, Neferti thought of something and asked, "Gwen, would you mind coming here for a second?"

Understanding what the warriors were trying to do, Gwen reached for the spellbook, found an appropriate spell and shouted, "Eradiko!"

Blue tendrils of energy sprouted from her hands and slammed into the door with the force of a freight train. To her shock, that spell had no effect at all.

"By Thoth!" Raht cried. "How much security would a door to a rooftop need?!"

"This pharaoh must be as paranoid as some of the conspirators in the city," Marnor commented.

The female computer voice declared over the PA, "Phase three initiation in: fifteen minutes."

Gwen suddenly had an idea, and asked Marnor to join her at the door. She asked him to bang on it as loudly as he could, and she shouted at the top of her voice, "HEY! WE NEED TO SEE THE PHARAOH! MY COUSIN IS INNOCENT!"

Surprisingly, after a few minutes of that, the door opened, and as it happened, a guard holding an amulet answered it. From its looks, this guard seemed to be a shabti, an animated clay statue. "Who requests an audience with the pharaoh?" It flatly asked in a hoarse, monotone voice.

Noticing this vulnerability, Gwen smirked, "Psych! Let's go, guys!"

"Finally, some action!" Marnor chortled with glee.

The squad tore through the statue like how a bullet shattered a clay pigeon – Neferti making sure to grab the amulet it held in case of needing to make an escape.

Dead ahead, as they charged towards the center of the palace's vast roof, there stood the pharaoh, his magician, and the partially mummified Ben. Gwen could see her cousin's exposed head, his face filled with a fear she'd never seen in him before. But this only fueled her desire to save him.

"I know not who you are, but I will not let you interfere with the pharaoh's plans!" The sorcerer snarled. Then he held out both hands, clasped them together, and uttered what the group thought was likely a sonic boom.

Gwen spontaneously used another spell, "Twista Comitatus!"

In an instant, a cobra of blue light sprang up, shielding her and her allies from harm.

Skaraab grunted, "You may have magic up your sleeves, but you stand in the presence of a master sorcerer! If you seek the pharaoh, you must go through me to do so!"

"Bring it on, grape-cape!" Gwen taunted. She turned to Ja'Kaal and stated, "I'll handle this man, you guys take care of the pharaoh."

"Sound plan, Gwen," the commander nodded.

The Golden Guard dispersed in a single second, so fast that before Skaraab could think to attack them, Gwen fired an energy blast in the midst of his distraction.

The armored warriors and Elastamun charged on the pharaoh, yowling in a war cry for their victory.

Skaraab waved his hands, and the pharaoh was suddenly shielded by more shabti warriors. They drew swords and spears and thrust themselves at the approaching allies.

One of the statues had the surprising agility to kick Ja'Kaal off the roof, but in mid-air, a la Buzz Lightyear, he pushed a scarab-shaped button on his armor's chestplate, deploying a large metallic set of Egyptian-style blue and gold falcon wings, emerging from a backpack mounted on his armor. Ion thrusters fired and propelled him into the air, giving the commander ground for an aerial attack, allowing him to shoot the enemy forces from a distance. Undyyne would have loved an opportunity like this.

Neferti and Elastamun fought side by side, back to back, against several guards that tried to gang up on both of them. Her with her incredible reflexes, clawed knuckle dusters and whip, and him with his natural elasticity and khopesh sword. The latter felt a thrill coursing through him, finally securing a name for himself as more than just a scribe, and allied with such a beautiful, determined woman, he sensed that her interest in him was justified.

Marnor was ecstatic at finally getting to tear through a target, having grown bored of the constant sneaking around with their battle armor on until now. The shabti, even with laser eyes or immense strength, were no match for Marnor's metal arm and bulky body. Some would just crumble if he so much as ran into them.

Max fought alongside him with his plasma gun, though only having a few magazines left. He realized the weapon had a setting for how much damage its projectiles did, and a high setting blasted the shabti apart in one shot, though this made the gun very hot and slowed down its rate of fire.

"Feels good to be fighting for a noble cause, doesn't it?" Max laughed.

"Why, that is what the Golden Guard is for! I have waited for this all day!" Marnor agreed with glee.

Gwen and Skaraab found themselves evenly matched, something the latter wasn't prepared for.

"Where...where did you become so adept at magic?!" He gasped.

"From a witch's book, and a little bit of luck!" Gwen taunted before firing another energy blast.

Rehk'Set watched all this happening, but didn't care in the slightest. His eyes had only been trained on the north plaza, watching a timer on his gauntlet. Ten minutes remained, just ten minutes until phase three began.

One by one, the guards fell, and before long, Ja'Kaal fired three burning arrows into the last shabti, sending it crumbling to the floor. He could hear people cheering below, this battle having likely drawn a crowd from the hacked drones filming this live for their viewing pleasure.

Elastamun jumped to the front, drew his sword, and snarled, "This is OVER, pharaoh! My friends have already thwarted your plan, see for yourself!" He pointed towards the south.

The sky was alive with hoverships and other vehicles headed for the palace. Thousands of Thep Khufans and other aliens were swarming the desert and battling the pharaoh's soldiers trying to block their efforts. This was almost on par with some of the real-life Egyptian battles Gwen saw in that vision when she communed with the gods.

The Starglider, fitted with a jury-rigged spraying mechanism, bathed the crowd of enslaved humans with the cure, and as if by magic, one by one, the baby Thep Khufans not only detached from the faces of the human hosts, but both parties reawakened, rejuvenated and livelier than ever. More ships landed to pick them up for transport to a safe zone.

But there were still the advanced slaves, the ones that didn't use these creatures as hosts. For them, the antidote did nothing. They continued to work and toil, locked in the magic mind control spell set by Rehk'Set and his minions.

The pharaoh just smiled, asking, "You, Elastamun? A lowly scribe? The one I left on Earth all those years ago?" He paused, then added, "Well, I do appreciate you delivering this boy and his family to my doorstep."

Elastamun screamed, "I did no such thing!"

Looking up, the pharaoh abruptly shouted, "Skaraab, stand down! My...visitors asked for an audience with me, and an audience they shall have!"

"Yes, my lord,"

Gwen and Max, in the midst of this, had scrambled to the front to see the captured boy.

"Ben! Are you all right?" his grandfather rushed to the boy, pulling at his bindings.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine, just terrified and all!" Ben groaned with sarcasm.

Rehk'Set laughed in that menacing tone, "How precious, a family doing everything to save its young!" He turned to the group, "But did you really think I would go down this easily? Think about it: I raise a shield, this boy sneaks in anyway. Your colleagues are not stopped from stealing my plan's files or..." he paused to look at one of the drones, pointed at it and chuckled, "Recording all of this to slander me! I had my sorcerer send out a shabti to open that door instead of a real guard. Come now, is that by chance, or all part of my own personal scheme?" He laughed again, "Before you came here, I had to study just how powerful you people were, especially this boy. But this battle was just the beginning. I have a REAL army at my disposal!" He raised an amulet to his mouth and whispered a strange set of words to it.

Those words formed an incantation that magically reprogrammed the hypnotized transhuman slaves. One by one, they dropped their tools and silently started running towards the palace.

"You are playing with the big boys now, my friends!" Rehk'Set laughed, "I am the only one that knows how to restore this planet to its glory days, and now you wish to destroy me? What a shame! No matter, my sorcerer and I bear more power than any one of you! Defeating you shall be a trivial task!"

The battle was suddenly interrupted by a buzzer sounding three times on the PA, followed by the computer declaring, "Attention: Operation Xenomorph, Phase three, is now in effect.

"But first, why don't I show you something?" He pointed north with a tapering paper finger, and asked Ben, "Look out there, and tell me what you see, human."

Ben and the others looked in that direction, and saw, rising from the ground at the end of a large plaza flanked by columns supporting massive ornaments shaped like metal orbs, a giant stone ring with a massive translucent hourglass shape inside at the ready, as the thing locked into place. Four green lights in equal distance from each other lined the outer ring.

"It looks like a portal...shaped like my watch," Ben answered.

"That is right. I designed this 'Omni-gate' based on your device," the pharaoh sneered.

"What...what do you need that for?" Ben stammered.

"For the final stage of my plan," he laughed, reaching for a gauntlet and tapping a button.

A portion of the plaza opened, raising a platform from below with a series of what looked like mortar cannons containing strange pods.

Then he flipped open another gauntlet Ben couldn't see, but appeared to be tapping a few buttons and rotating something. With a final button pushed, those orbs turned out to be tesla coils, giving off giant bursts of green electricity that flowed to the portal. The hourglass slid over itself into a diamond shape while it and the outer ring rotated back and forth several times, sounding tones and flashing green lights that Gwen thought were the sounds humans played at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Ben was already getting flashbacks of Dr. Viktor's portal, and he had a bad feeling about what this machine was going to be used for.

On the 5th tone, the green diamond spun at an increasing speed like a CD, until the green, electrified blur gave way to a sight that horrified Gwen and Ben.

"That's...my house..." Ben gasped, so shocked he could barely speak. He had nearly forgotten about that place considering how much action had been in his countrywide summer vacation.

"Yes, human..." the pharaoh sneered with dark glee.

Max shouted, "Don't touch my grandson!"

Rehk'Set turned to look at the other two Tennysons again, then smirked, "Well, now that this family is together, you will have the pleasure of being the first to witness your planet made into my kingdom...starting with your parents, Ben Tennyson!"

"You're going to do WHAT?!" Ben shrieked in fright. He'd been staring at the image in the portal for minutes, but didn't know that that was his plan.

"You...are...a MADMAN!" Max shouted while trying to catch his breath. The shock of an act this cruel hit him more than it did Ben and Gwen, as to him, Rehk'Set was going to transform and likely enslave his own children, their parents.

Then the pharaoh reached into his robe and pulled out a staff gleaming with a purple corrodium crystal, used his other hand to stretch his fingers into the Tennysons' pockets, and yanked out the three hazmat suit modules, then crushed them in his fist, destroying the suits forever.

"No!" Max cried.

"And then..." He sneered, "I will KILL you where you are standing!" He laughed while pointing the corrodium rod in their direction.

He looked at Elastamun and added, "Oh yes, Elastamun. I forgot to tell you: Valensen has been incinerated for his treason!"

"No! How can that-" He started to cry.

"He's right, actually," Gwen sadly interrupted.

Raht agreed, "We saw him in the underworld. He asked Gwen to deliver a message."

"And what message is that?" The scribe plaintively asked.

"He said his death wasn't in vain, and your knowledge of humans would go to a greater cause," Gwen recited.

"'Greater cause'? Ha! What for? What are humans worth? They threw our culture, our LIFE away millennia ago, and now only care for their own self-indulgence. My mission will show them the error of their ways!" the pharaoh ranted.

He tapped another button on of his gauntlets, and a few minutes followed as a door at the east end of the rooftop opened, and on a hover sled came a sarcophagus from a dark space. "I really do wish you had not come here, scribe. You were assigned to simply monitor humans for their behavior and biology, nothing more. This...curiosity of yours into their history was not part of your mission. And now, look what that has cost you!" Rehk'Set declared while pointing with both hands towards the body

The hovering coffin approached the pharaoh and tilted upright to a 60-degree angle. A robot arm reached out and pulled the lid open, and inside, covered in bandages from the neck down, was Ahmed, the antique dealer. Although breathing, his eyes were closed, and the activity around him didn't stir his sleep, so he'd likely been sedated with a drug or spell..

Elastamun felt like a knife was turning in his hollow chest. But as if this situation couldn't get any worse, Rehk'Set reached into his cloak and pulled out another of those haunting masks.

"If you do ANYTHING to thwart my Xenomorph project, I will use this on your friend," then turned towards the Tennysons, "And make your family my first target!"

Ben heard a tone, and noticed the watch had finally recharged.


	18. The Evil Within

"Um, guys? Ideas?" Ben asked with fear.

Rehk'Set noticed the watch's green glow as the boy turned around. He smiled, "Ah, good. Now that your Omnitrix has recharged, perhaps now you will do what I asked for?"

Ben felt a chill in his spine, but his cousin interrupted, "What does he want you to do?"

He could barely muster the courage to answer, but stammered, "He...wants me...to turn into Ghostfreak!"

Raht gasped, "No! Don't do that! He will take over and enslave us all again!"

Max demanded, "Why do you care about him?"

"My empire was born from his reign, I only wish an audience with Zs'Skayr to tell him how far I have come!" Rehk'Set answered.

"Ben, if you do this one thing for me," Rehk'Set chuckled, "I will suspend my plan! I mean it, I can do that!"

"He's bluffing, Ben!" Gwen argued. "We've already seen other villains pull this kind of trick!"

Ja'Kaal noticed the brainwashed slaves climbing the walls and completely ignoring the resistance below. "People, we have company!" he warned. He impulsively wanted to draw his bow, but knew that, in a way, would be friendly fire.

The Tennysons and scribe looked over the edge and saw the approaching slaves.

Rehk'Set mocked the Tennysons, "Oh, what a pitiful irony! Your people turned against you!"

Max wanted to speak that the exact same thing had happened to the pharaoh, but couldn't find the words with all this power the man had.

Elastamun turned about and growled, "This must end! You have no right to turn hundreds of humans into your...playthings!"

"And it will, once the boy fulfills my request!" the pharaoh insisted. He looked at Ben for a moment, then added a threat, "Or would you rather I go ahead and transform your friends and family RIGHT NOW?"

"No! No, please!" Gwen begged.

"I'll do it," Ben sighed. "Unwrap me, and I'll do it...pharaoh."

"You have my word," he ordered Skaraab to do that.

Now free on his feet, Ben looked down at the watch, and felt like everything on this planet was riding on this one choice.

But before he did, Ben asked his cousin, "You said you went to the underworld. Is that...is that where the gods are?"

"Yes, they told us everything," Raht answered for her. "They said they might help us."

"The gods? Please, they abandoned us centuries ago, just like they forsake your people on Earth!" The pharaoh argued.

Ben turned to the pharaoh, and demanded with a courage he never thought he had, sensing that people were watching him through those drones, "If I do this for you, Let. My people. Go! Ghostfreak would never be that kind to us. Are you?"

Looking at the slaves, he thought long and hard, and answered, "Show me his form first. Then I will do as you ask."

Before doing this, he asked, "Won't people be watching me?"

Gwen pointed out, "That's more of an issue on Earth. I mean, THESE people worship you for crying out loud!"

Raht pointed out, "In a sense, I think she is correct. You are already a written legend here, like it or lump it. Whatever happens, history will likely be written about all of us on this planet."

Ben's face seemed to brighten a little when he heard that, then managed to calm himself and reply, "Well, better make this story count, then."

"Go on, I am waiting!" the pharaoh barked.

Ben looked down at his watch. Knowing he had to confront his fears head-on after that last mission, he sighed, pushed the Omnitrix's start switch, and turned the faceplate to that eerie spectral silhouette he glimpsed just after landing in the desert, before all this started. He took a brief look at the sky, and was glad that it was night time, otherwise this would not have worked without the outer skin of the alien's former self.

"Here goes nothing," he quietly said as he pushed the faceplate back down, wondering if he'd done the right thing.

Ben could feel the solidity of his body fading little by little as this phantom from his nightmares slowly became his form.

The crowd below screamed in fright at seeing their former conqueror having returned to this planet. They were as afraid of him as Ben himself was.

Out of the blue, Rehk'Set's demeanor changed from an overbearing tyrant to a groveling plebian. "Great conqueror, welcome! I am eternally grateful for the inspiration your empire gave me in constructing mine! You must have endured much to wind up inside the Omnitrix on the skin of a weak human being!"

Ben still felt like himself for the moment, but felt that familiar cold chill and the shadow of the creature inside slowly creeping in, like the symbiote that once tried to control Spider-Man.

Gwen and Max watched in fear, and the rest in apprehension. Everyone knew that if Zs'Skayr overpowered Ben, then he could be gone for good, just like he said this morning.

Trying to keep the tide on his side for now, he played the pharaoh's ego and answered, "Why yesss, it has been a long time indeed. Oh how I have missed this little dirtball."

Marnor whispered to Neferti, "Is the pharaoh always THIS thick?"

She shushed him, "Let us not break the charade."

"I could use some food for this," Elastamun giggled as quietly as he could. "This is just like those movies I watch on Earth!"

"You watch movies?" Gwen asked with surprise.

The pharaoh gestured to the portal and the devices in front of it, asking, "What do you think of my latest project? With this device, we can conquer the entire galaxy together, turning all into my species, as you can see before you!"

Realizing that he had an advantage over this being who now acted like a servant to his every will, Ben declined, "No, 'pharaoh'. We Ectonurites have our own means of conquest, and it doesn't require such wasteful, complicated methods. You...You've only sunk this planet nearly into ruin because of that. Why should I care about your sorry excuse for an empire?"

That tinge of malevolence from the real Zs'Skayr was slipping into Ben's voice. He had to hurry.

The possessed slaves had cleared the top of the palace wall, leaving the Golden Guard to fight them off. They knew that they had to be careful to incapacitate these people, not kill them.

"What?! You lie! I have set this planet back on course for a new and brighter future!" Rehk'Set protested.

Then and there, Ben knew that this man's ego wasn't going to budge, and like so many people in media, that was going to be his downfall.

Ben laughed a little, realizing suddenly that Zs'Skayr was starting to say things Ben didn't intend to say, "You are NO PHARAOH! Just a pitiful little creature trying to be as good as the people who enslaved his own kind! You think you can control the Anur system like I did years ago? No, your reign ends here! There will always be someone better than you!"

Abruptly, the East door opened again, and out stepped Ilais.

"Pharaoh?" she called "Are you all right? I came as you asked!"

He didn't hear her. "Please, great one!" Rehk'Set now seemed to be begging. "I am a sovereign son of Ra! My mission was not just for you, or my people, but for our gods as well! Can't you see that I did all of this for the good of everyone?"

His words were completely untrue, everyone could see that. Even Ilais noticed something was odd about this. When she laid eyes on Zs'Skayr, she gasped, readied her spear, and screamed, "Get back! GET BACK! I'm not letting you hurt my friends! I'm warning you, monster, if you harm the Golden Guard, I will drive this spear through your head!"

"I don't need your friends," Ben hissed, feeling that he was beginning to lose his mental side against the personality inside his form. "I need to teach your so-called 'pharaoh' a lesson in leadership!"

"No! Please! Have mercy, great one! This power is all I have left! It...It's the only thing that keeps me alive!"

Without another word, Ghostfreak dived headfirst into the red-faced being's body, possessing him on the spot. Black cracks appeared in the sockets of his mask head, and the red glow turned to that distinctive purple one common to Dr. Viktor's minion.

"Master? Are you well?" Skaraab asked with fear.

The possessed pharaoh stepped to the edge of the roof, staring at two of the drones, and shouted, Ghostfreak's voice cackling over the speakers, "Witness the end of your pitiful pharaoh!"

And with that, Rehk'Set's body tossed itself about like a ping-pong ball, slamming back and forth between the two distant walls of the palace wings, ascending into the air and then slamming into the floor.

Skaraab, of all people, cast a spell that froze the slaves in their place. He knew this from that code sheet he gave the pharaoh, having memorized it before doing so.

Onlookers below fervently prayed to the Gods, hoping that everything would turn out all right in the end, and that they would be safe from harm by morning. They too were afraid that the being of a thousand beings had been lost to Zs'Skayr's reappearance, and put all of that hope to the contrary into their prayers. Temples were clogged with civilians seeking audience with the gods, and scribes were writing down what was happening, keeping the written tradition in religion, over computer usage.

"Stand back, I sense things will be ugly before this night is done!" the sorcerer warned, holding out his arm and backing toward the Tennysons and Golden Guard while creating a barrier between him, Ilais, and the two evil aliens. He also used a remote control to return Ahmed's coffin to where it came from, finding it safer to keep a captive out of harm's way.

Ben's will was dangling on a razor's edge, but he kept pushing back as much as he could. Managing to get a degree of control back after Zs'Skayr senselessly assaulting this man, Ben tried a Wonder Woman tactic next.

After that self-imposed thrashing, Ghostfreak emerged from the Pharaoh's body and wrapped both hands around his head. The phantom hissed to his captive, "Now, tell us the truth you have been hiding for so long!"

Feeling the painful effects of an Ectonurite brain trawl, Rehk'Set confessed, "I...stole humans from Earth and turned them into more Thep Khufans. First by spreading an artificial sickness to my kin, then using enchanted masks to transform the humans."

"Good. Why did you do this?"

"I...I wanted my own kingdom, after I was denied the throne again and again. I saw the Thep Khufans, and from there on, I wanted to be like them; I asked for the gods to grant my wish, but only one listened."

This caught everyone by surprise. How did that add up to gaining power on this planet instead of Earth? Elastamun tried to remember something, but the fear in everyone blocked it out.

Gwen and Max were really beginning to wonder if there was any trace of Ben left in that form. The boy himself felt almost completely blocked out by Zs'Skayr now. He had to act fast before this form did something truly evil.

Ghostfreak finished, laughing, "Show us, weakling!"

"Yes, great one," he muttered. Rehk'Set willingly shed his robes, ornaments, nemes headcloth, possessions, and gauntlets, then reached for his own head as Ghostfreak let go, "But you will not like what you see."

Elastamun was about to hurl, Ja'Kaal and Raht cringed. For all they knew, this guy was going to cut his own head off, or something along those lines.

Instead, Rehk'Set pulled on the mask, and, grabbing onto a seam just behind the faceplate, he yanked it off, and the faceplate snapped away from the rest of his head, clanging loudly to the floor, and revealing something so much more horrifying.

Inside the Thep Khufan head stared the undead face of a mummified human, eyes aglow with that creepy red light like something out of a horror movie. Then, as the rest of the mask head crumbled away, the Thep Khufan body beneath it transformed before everyone's eyes, the lanky, hunchbacked figure and tapering paper fingers morphing bit by bit into the form of a stuffed human mummy. One mummy to another, live on camera. Ben's plan had exposed the ruler for what he truly was. The crowd below gaped in shock, realizing that they had been ruled by an impostor.

"How do you like that?" Max remarked while trying to get over his shock. "A human mummy disguises himself as a mummy...creature, ruling over a planet of those mummies!"

"This is just going off the charts on the weirdness scale," Gwen snarked. "Who on Earth would do something this crazy? Never mind the fact that that person was dead!"

Ghostfreak flew in front of this new being and interrogated him, "Who are you, really?"

"I am...Rehnenset, scribe to Ahmenhotep of Egypt. Or rather, I was," the mummy rasped, still in that Ellison voice.

"Is he...how old is he?" Gwen asked as quietly as she could to her allies.

Elastamun searched his knowledge of ancient history and realized, "Ahmenhotep the first ruled from 1526 to 1506 BCE. Which means..." he looked towards the mummified human and gasped, "You are roughly four thousand years old!"

Skaraab demanded, "How in Ra's name did you come to be here, then? I have known you for so long, yet now I know nothing!"

That's when Elastamun remembered the two papyrus scrolls. The man's mention of seeing Thep Khufans on Earth, his former position as a scribe, and the obscurity and strange format of the scrolls themselves, all pointed to the conclusion that this was the person who wrote them.

Rehnenset answered, stepping a few feet closer to the sorcerer, "Like I said, I wanted to be like you. The power over immense strength, agility, and elasticity fascinated me more than my original plan to overthrow Ahmenhotep. And when I realized as a young man that your kind were enslaved by...that magnificent creature," he gestured to Ghostfreak, "I sought for a way to reach this world, and turn myself into one of your kind, so that I could...help them," his inflection said something different than that. "While I searched for a way to do all of this, I studied the connections between these slaves and my people. The parallels were striking, to say the least; I sometimes wondered if the gods were physical beings from that world as well." Rehnenset continued his story, "Unfortunately, my peers shunned me for my beliefs and had me executed and mummified as you see here. But before that happened...I made a deal."

"A deal with who?" Gwen asked.

The mummy hesitated, then answered, "The God of Chaos. He would do what no other God would dare to do. He revived me after death, blessed me with immortality, and brought me to this place...if in exchange I sold my soul to him so that we could work together. We were made for each other! Without the pointless bureaucracy of Egypt, we could start here with a clean slate!"

Ben was struggling to hold his own against the encroaching blackness in his mind.

"It took many long years of hardship, but once he blessed me with my new form, Set worked me into the family of the latest pharaoh as his adopted nephew, and though frightening indeed, I watched these alien ghosts, learned to like their ruthless way of ruling, and waited for the chance to take action. Then, I killed my so-called uncle, Rho'Tep when he was vulnerable and seized the throne then and there," he finished with another laugh.

"And now..." A disembodied voice boomed from all sides.

The discarded red mask faceplate rose into the air, hovered and spun for a moment, then shattered into little fragments, an eerie red dust leaking out of every piece. Within minutes, the dust expanded and swirled until it formed into a towering giant of a man, an enormous Amun Khufan twice as tall as the palace. Whereas the mask he came from was just red, every inch of this being was red, from the bandages to the eyes.

The head was a slender, black, indescribable animal, like a cross between an alligator, jackal, rabbit, and snake. But one thing was evident, Set, the living embodiment of chaos had been awoken. The drones shorted out and crashed to the ground during this event, leaving the screens black with the words "NO SIGNAL", before they too shut down.

The citizens were more terrified than ever, first seeing their ruler exposed for who he really was, then realizing that he had been merely a host for Set himself.

"All our hard work has come to glorious fruition!" the god laughed, the sound as loud as ever, "Oh, I have been waiting for this moment for such a long time, I was beginning to worry it would never come!"

He turned to Ghostfreak and added, "Ah, is this the thing you so desperately wanted to gain the ruling power of?"

Ben was on the verge of screaming, "Someone please, get me out of this!"

Instead, the form answered, "Yes...you were the one who whispered into my ear to give me the idea to control this entire system! How can I repay you for giving my kind such a brilliant idea?"

"Well, I only did that because of how fun it is to watch societies tear each other apart, and my, what a thrill you gave me when you did the same to this world! And many thanks for severing the bond that tied me to my host; now that you have removed the last obstacle to our plan, I have no need of you or your pitiful, selfish, egomaniacal species, anymore." He noticed the Omnitrix symbol, "Goodbye, ex-Ecto-Lord."

Set reached out one finger and jabbed it against the faceplate. Just like how Vilgax did it, this shut down the watch prematurely, finally returning Ben to his human self. Being a few feet off the ground, it was a rough landing.

"This planet belongs to us, and tonight, so will the galaxy!" Set howled.

He looked down at Rehnenset and asked him, "Shall we finish the project?"

"I have been hoping you would ask me that!" the evil scribe answered.

"Oh, wait, you forgot one little detail, haven't you, Rehnenset?"

"What is that?"

"If you ever take off your mask, and reveal yourself, you lose your new body and our deal is broken. Don't you remember, foolish mortal?"

"What?!" he shrieked in alarm.

"You have served as my mutual vessel for a long time, and now that you have released me, well...I commend you for getting me this far! Send my best regards to my brother, Osiris!" he laughed, raising one hand, materializing an ornate coffin, and zapping Rehnenset in the head with a beam of red energy, killing him forever. The coffin slammed shut and zoomed into the temple's east wing to join Ahmed's.

After that, he looked down at Tennysons and company, he added, "And as for you? Well, firstly, those former humans are mine, now!"

He pointed one finger at the frozen swarm of transhuman mummies, unfroze them, and changed their hypnosis program again. Elastamun wondered if they'd ever wake up from this.

"Hours remain until sunrise," Set challenged, "So if any of you mortals think you can defeat me...well," he chuckled, "I would love to see you try! I AM a god, after all!"

Ben took a few minutes to get his head back into the game, with comfort and protection by his relatives and allies. He actually found it surprising that Set was able to simply deactivate the watch, but ironically thanked him for that, who would have thought gods hate Ectonurites? Ben was just glad to have been released from Zs'Skayr's grip. With that kind of literally haunting experience, Ben swore to himself that he would never again use that form.

Set seemed to be commanding the transformed slaves into lining up in front of the stargate, rather than swathing the humans in bandages. A personal army, ruled by the god of chaos. Somehow, that was worse.

Ja'Kaal saw this and informed his allies, "This will be the epitome of all we have fought for. Are you ready?"

Ben felt filled with determination after having dealt with the previous horrible incident, and shouted, "IT'S HERO TIME!"


	19. Ultimate Showdown

Ja'Kaal summoned his ship with a homing beacon on his right arm, and as soon as it arrived, and ordered his crew, "Take the humans aboard my ship, we will defend them here until the end!"

"Wait, what?" Ben asked.

"You are vulnerable until your watch recharges, remember?" The commander reminded him.

"Your grandfather is a brilliant sharpshooter," Marnor reminded him. "Perhaps that could come in handy?"

"Probably, but who's gonna fly it while you guys are down here?" The elderly man asked.

"I will," Ilais volunteered out of the blue.

"You?" Ja'Kaal asked, "Weren't you the one who sabotaged-"

"I know what I did," the warrior stopped her, "But I am willing to atone for it – if I had known I was working for the God of Chaos, I would never have agreed! He would rather go back on the promise I asked of him than keep it. Therefore, I volunteer to operate your ship."

Raht warned, "I fear all we can do is delay this god until the rest arrive."

"So you had best be ready, warrior," Ja'Kaal added.

Ilais bowed, then Ja'Kaal handed her his key and showed her into his ship, leading the Tennysons into it behind her. He reminded the warrior, "Please don't scratch the chassis, Raht and I worked hard on it!"

She assured him that that would not happen, then started up the craft and flew it into the air.

"We need to take out those...cannon things before he uses them on Earth!" Gwen directed the people in front.

Ilais eyed her console carefully, and Grandpa Max with his, finding a similar gunner console like the one in the crashed ship. He also noticed a secondary weapon next to the turret control.

"Looks like this thing has a ton of firepower with it," he remarked.

"What about that portal?" Ben asked.

Max reminded him, "That could be our ticket home, son."

"Oh, right."

Looking at the pilot, Max asked, "Ee-lays, get us over those cannons, I think I can get a shot off at those."

"Will do," the warrior nodded, pushing the throttle.

Finding a headset in a compartment under the dash, Max mounted it in his ear and called over the commlink, "All units, this Max Tennyson calling from the Hot-Ra. The Golden Guard leaders are currently on the ground and engaged with the enemy. Do you copy?"

Voices beeped in one by one acknowledging their presence.

Nimdok reported, "Max, this is scientist Nimdok from the Starglider, be advised: The infected TKs are healed, and all related human subjects are safe. Transformed human slaves still at large. Over,"

"Copy, Nimdok. The God Set is going to use remaining slaves as his personal troops to invade planet Earth, and must be stopped ASAP. Over,"

Undyyne responded, "I copy, Max. What are your orders?"

"Concentrate your firepower on the...giant red thing, Set to keep him busy while we take care of his primary weapon, over."

"Affirmative, Max," an unfamiliar male soldier's voice buzzed, "We will make contact in fifty standard seconds, over."

"Copy. Max out."

As the elderly man ended the call, Ilais re-cloaked the ship and flew it over and just behind the Omni-gate to give Max a good shot. Lining up the crosshairs on the HUD, Max reached for a button for the missile launchers, and fired three rockets towards the mortar guns.

"What is this?!" Set snarled in anger as the rockets approached his weapons. Waving his hand, the cannons fired by themselves, launching capsules containing more of those transformation masks toward the ship. One missile detonated in mid-air and blew a few of the launched capsules apart, destroying them. The second went off-target and hit the floor of the plaza, scorching the tiles and scattering several of Set's troops, some slightly burning from the explosion. The third, remarkably, landed right inside the barrel of one of the four mortars, blowing it up and damaging the two on both sides.

Set looked at this, then up at the ship. His divine powers allowed him to see right through the cloak at the Hot-Ra, and he laughed, "Well, if that is how you wish to play it, then fine. Earth can wait, this is a little more interesting than I thought."

Elastamun shouted with fury, in a dark tone they'd never heard before. "You and your meat-puppet have threatened my friends and the people of both this place and Earth, and we will not stand for that!"

"Come down here and fight us with dignity!" Marnor loudly taunted.

The dozens of ships unleashed plasma fire on his massive body, to him feeling like hot water droplets in a shower. Rockets hurt a little more, but only went off like firecrackers against his skin.

He laughed, "Very well, then! You puny beings are no fun at this size, anyway!"

Then he enacted a spell that changed him to a proper humanoid size to match the people on the roof, then he picked up Rehnenset's control gauntlet and slipped it onto his right forearm. Opening the panel, he powered down the stargate and taunted, "But beware: you have no idea whom you are dealing with! Even without my vessel's weapons, one push of this button, and I could raze your home to the ground!"

Elastamun, Skaraab, and the elite Golden Guard braced themselves for the greatest battle of their lives. Despite the god being outnumbered, his sheer number of abilities balanced it out.

Set stretched his body slightly as if working muscles, the warriors readied their weapons, Skaraab charged his magical reserves, and the palace rooftop exploded into a frenzy of action. Having noticed this, Max ordered the other ships to only shoot Set when they saw an exposed spot, and not shoot the others.

The Elite Golden Guard tackled the god from all sides. Ja'Kaal launched several burning arrows at Set's body, but he swatted them out of the air as if they were flies, smashing them against his forearms like Wonder Woman and shattering them on impact, nary a scratch to be seen.

Marnor managed to lift Set into the air and suplex him using his metal arm, but the chaos god countered by gripping Marnor's head between his ankles, bending inwards, then throwing the burly Thep Khufan six feet across the rooftop with his legs.

Skaraab launched an assault of scorpions at his body, remembering how prominent those were in the Underworld. They tore at his bandages, jabbing hundreds of poisonous stingers into them. But Set countered by burning them all to a crisp at once using a wave of fire.

Neferti charged in next, with Elastamun boxing Set in from the opposite side. The former grabbed Set's head with her whip and pulled him to the ground. Aiming for his neck, she used her knuckle dusters to cut the bandages near Set's head.

While she did this, Elastamun had an idea and grabbed the corrodium staff. Uncertain if the genetic rules applied, the scribe snatched it up, and, using one hand to strap Set to the ground, held the staff close to the god's head and taunted, "We have something thousands of years hasn't known: Radioactive corrodium!"

Set's head turned 180 degrees – less gruesome for this species than a human's – and he just snarked, "Please, I had my minions work with this! If there is anything I do not have, it's your confidence. That can be so easily broken!"

Then he used his raw strength to rip apart the scribe's bandages, then, back on his feet, Set crossed his arms and then thrust them apart, unleashing a massive seismic wave of red energy that propelled everyone across the roof, to the point that they dented the stone walls on impact. Laser fire rained down on Set as this happened, all of the ships aimed on the god's body. The god simply smiled, knowing that no matter how advanced these simple offshoots of his race could make their weapons technology, plasma was no match for a being of pure chaos.

"So that's the game, is it?" Elastaumn muttered, readying his khopesh.

"Well, two can play at this!" Raht added as he pulled out his larger sword. The pair of Thep Khufans jumped into the air, and, after Raht performed a remarkably-executed backflip, both simultaneously swung their swords at Set's shoulders.

The blades lodged themselves for a moment, but as soon as their users withdrew them, the gashes resealed themselves. Set uttered a deep laugh, then gripped the armored tactician from afar with one hand as if channeling the Dark Side of the Force, crushing his head ever so slowly with telekinetic force. Set did the same to Elastamun, but made him watch as the chaos god used his other hand to psychically thrash the tactician against floating piles of bricks at a speed even faster than Zs'Skayr did to Set's former host. Elastamun could see Set's hand jerking in all directions, flinging Raht along with it until finally throwing him to the ground.

Marnor gasped, "By Ra, there is just no stopping this deity!"

The Pisciss Volann fighter watched this through the Starglider's windscreen, and it pained her. She hadn't known Thep Khufans in general that much, but as a former military commander who hated to see her soldiers die by the enemy's hands, Undyyne befriended the Golden Guard, primarily in hopes of adding her experience to their cause.

So, angered at her colleagues getting breathtakingly thrashed by this malevolent god, Undyyne fired three RPG missiles at Set's head, each detonating on contact one by one, all of them on target. A Thep Khufan would have had its head blown open with that kind of force, but for Set, it just left scorch marks and a throbbing pain.

Undyyne screamed on the ship's PA, "NGAAHHH! You feel that, Set?! I might not know much about gods, but one thing's for sure, you're standing in the way of this planet's HOPES and DREAMS!"

Set could hear the people below slowly forming a chant, "Let! His! People! Go!" "Let! His! People! Go!" "Let! His! People! Go!" The entire crowd resonated with the determination to prove that the humans must be freed at all costs.

Set raised his voice loud enough for the people to hear, "This planet is FINISHED! My family has forsaken it for centuries! Soon, you will all die off, and there will be nothing left of your pitiful little society! Do you know why?"

The crowd roared with scorn towards the god's voice.

"Because you, and by extension humans distorted my very image, and if I cannot destroy their world, then I will destroy this one! How dare you confuse me with the serpent of chaos, when I am the very one who defends Ra from it?! Or rather, used to defend him!" He cackled. "I will MAKE! YOU! SUFFER for besmirching my name!"

"That's it?" Gwen asked, hearing this inside the Hot-Ra.

"Wow, what a baby!" Ben subtly mocked the god.

In anger, shrugging off the shower of projectiles, Set hovered off the ground and ranted to the people on the roof, "Do you not know what it is like to be left in the shadow of everyone else? To be scorned and mocked for eons among the pantheon, all just for protecting Ra from chaos?! Every time, every day, every...myth, I am always branded as the evil one, when it is the serpent of true chaos, MY MORTAL NEMESIS, that should bear that title! There is a difference between mere chaos, and the absolute destruction of EVERYTHING! Even I do not want that, otherwise there would be literally nothing left!"

He turned to Elastamun and psychically grabbed him again, "You, simple one, should know this much! My host told me how much you know of human Egyptian culture, don't you know the history that has painted me like the Christian Satan?"

Stammering in the god's crushing invisible grip, Elastamun answered, "Ye-Yes, when foreign cultures temporarily conquered Egypt around the Third Intermediate period."

Set tightened his grip, but Elastamun raised his voice, "But hear me, god: Human beings never have uniform opinions! Nor do we, in fact! Can't you see? We all know that chaos and order need each other, and differing views are integral to that! Just because people changed their views on the religion they formed that might not be the same as ours, doesn't mean you have the right to wage war on those people!"

Set looked long and hard at the scribe, gritted his sharp teeth.

Finally, Elastamun finished it with, "You know, Zs'Skayr already attacked Earth not two days ago. Don't you think humans need rest?"

Set abruptly slammed Elastamun to the ground, and snarled, "If that is the case, then at least I will have the pleasure of changing one more human's mind!"

Then to twist the scribe's heart further, Set yanked Ahmed's coffin out of the palace and moved it close to Elastamun so that he could see it up close, surrounded by a red aura. The evil mask that the dead scribe dropped then joined it in the air.

As Elastamun climbed to his feet, Set snapped his fingers and Ahmed slowly woke. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs out of it, and wearily asked, "Ohhh...what is this? Where am I?"

Elastamun rushed to his side, hoping his good friend wasn't aware enough to notice that the scribe wasn't human. He muttered into his ear, "You're okay, we're...in a hotel, and...the TV has this nice movie on in the background!"

"Really? Quite a vivid movie!" Ahmed remarked. Looking down, he asked, "Whoa, why am I wearing bandages?!"

Elastamun knew the act was slipping. He heard several explosions in the background, signifying that all of the "mask mortar" cannons were now destroyed.

Set grabbed the mask and summoned a blue corrodium shard from the distant quarry, then gleefully stepped towards his hostage.

"In a few moments, you will not even remember your name!" Set cackled.

"NO!" Elastamun cried as he spread his body over Ahmed's as a protective canopy. "I will NOT let you turn my best friend into another of those mindless puppets of yours!"

Ahmed couldn't see much with this sudden tan barrier over his face, but, still drowsy, he chalked it up to someone pulling the covers on his bed, and opted to go back to sleep.

"Oh look, isn't that precious?" Set mocked him. "Going out of your way to protect a poor old human who doesn't even know your real identity!"

"Step away from the sarcophagus!" Max shouted over the Hot-Ra's PA

Set stretched out his limbs, pulled Elastamun's head and shoulders away from Ahmed's face, shoved the mask onto it, jabbed the corrodium piece into his chest, and screeched, "Say goodbye to your worthless junk dealer!"

"Why?! Why do you do this?!" the scribe shrieked, defeat sinking into his mind.

"Because...I enjoy it!" the god laughed.

Elastamun grabbed onto the mask and pulled, straining to keep it from working its magic. Immediately, he pulled out the corrodium crystal and threw it off the roof, but the heavily bleeding gash was a bad sign.

"Neferti, come quick!" the scribe cried in panic, "My human friend is bleeding!"

The cat warrior rushed to the man's side and worked to patch the wound with the bandages around it. Elastamun himself poured all of his effort in removing that accursed mask. He could feel the tentacles trying to sprout from it and ensnare Ahmed's sleeping head. He could see from his eyes that Ahmed was going into shock from such a gruesome wound. The man couldn't even speak. And that wasn't counting the potential radiation poisoning from the crystal, who knew if that was in effect as well?

"O Hathor, help this human live!" Neferti prayed.

Set simply walked away from the battle, and, looking at the Omni-gate, he suddenly thought of a new use for it. Activating it, Set pondered to himself, "Now, what would be an appropriate exile for you? Kylmyys?"

He twisted the knob until the portal showed an orbital view of a frozen, Hoth-like planet.

"Abydos?" He switched it again, now showing a desert planet surrounded by three moons.

"Perhaps even Vulpin?" And again it changed, now showing a desolate, polluted global junkyard of a planet, perched on the edge of the galaxy.

Recovering from that telekinetic rattling, Raht wearily asked Skaraab, "How...how much longer until sunrise?"

The sorcerer pulled out an ornate pocket watch-like device, and he answered, "Less than one standard hour."

"Oh dear," the tactician gulped. Looking towards the east, he stated, "I fear that if Set is here, Ra will have a difficult time reaching our physical world."

"You believe that? I lost trust in those beliefs years ago ever since...I don't know how long," Skaraab sighed.

"We shall see," Ja'Kaal remarked, looking towards the same horizon with valorous hope.


	20. Divine Victory

On Anur Khufos, priests and architects were designing murals, scrolls and statues of the incredible events that happened last night and the day before, of how the Tennysons were summoned here, the sickness, and the entire planet's efforts to stop Set. Ben would have been pleased to see himself and his watch depicted in the Egyptian-like sideways profile always seen in real Egyptian murals, not to mention a statue of his likeness alongside those of his grandfather and cousin.

Ja'Kaal hoped Neferti's vacation wouldn't take too long, but felt confident that this was a time of peace for everyone, and relaxed just the same. Raht had been discussing ideas as to what their next course of action could be, one of which could be expeditions to other planets, or perhaps special guardians for the next person for the throne. But the commander told him that nothing was set in stone yet.

The planet's government would have to go over a lot of work to choose who would be the next pharaoh, but thrown into the debate was the nearly-unanimous suggestion of rewriting the class structure so that slaves would no longer be necessary for labor, and servants would be treated more fairly. If massive monuments like pyramids were to be built, then construction machines would be used instead of manual labor.

Many people found better lives for themselves as well. Those two gossipy servants were already given promotions ahead of time, allowed to choose new careers for themselves. Valerian joined the Rigil clan alongside Ilais, and Rel'Hathor found a well-paying job at a local spa in Mos Isis. Even Undyyne joined the planet's military regime, helping Captain Drexel train his soldiers.

Whoever would assume the throne next and be linked to the gods' telepathic presence, it was certain that this new class system would take effect on that day.

Later that night, Set had to finish what his father had done in his place: Fighting Apophis. Upon being dumped into the snake's pocket of space-time, Set just dropped to his knees and screamed in agony, realizing this that he couldn't leave it.

"Hello, my crazy nemesis," the snake laughed, coiling himself around the dwarfed chaos god. "I've missed you, where have you been all this time? Last I recall, your father and his boring gods were the ones to evade me, by sheer luck!"

"I have always fought you off, what are you talking about?!"

"Not always – you have popped in and out of existence and only barely deterred me. Distracted, I would say," the snake laughed. "Tell me, what has kept you? I am DYING to know!"

"A pitiful human mortal wanted to join me, and...I had fun with it."

"Well, now your fun is over! Shall we begin our ritual? Or would you rather finally let me go so that I can-"

"Never!" Set screamed as he conjured his sword and swiped at Apophis, "I have been scorned and mocked enough already in the mortal realm! No one there seems to care about MY worth, I do not need your input on top of that!"

"I AM you, weakling! Do not deny it for a moment!" Apophis snarled. "No matter how many times you may defeat me, or how you are blind to my gaze, chaos penetrates all and you know it! You are just a bumbling child who cannot possibly understand what it means to be loved!"

"Nor do you, abomination!"

Horus just groaned from Ra's boat, thinking, "Get on with it, brother!"

So the fight continued into the evening, while both planets slept in the mortal realm.

On early Monday morning on Earth, a portal in Rehnenset's tomb opened, through which came Elastamun and his new girlfriend, towing the scribe's dead body and coffin, laying it to rest in the pit where it was meant to be. Remembering those scrolls still at his underground house, tablets and other items here bolstered the dead man's claims along with them.

As Elastamun took pictures of everything with a digital camera, Neferti giggled, "They will never know the truth, will they?"

"No, but that is for the better. The truth would be so complicated it would be even harder for humans to understand."

Later, back in Giza, Elastamun started dismantling his home under the satellite pyramid of Khafre, knowing someone was going to find it sooner or later. Taking down all his murals, statues and other accoutrements and shoving them through the portal on a hover cart, and boxing up his terrestrial belongings, Elastamun was effectively moving everything out of this space to a house he rented in Mos Isis. Two-thirds through the process, he pulled on his human clothes, checking its pockets for items.

"You have to wear that to blend in with humans?" Neferti asked, on the verge of giggling.

"Yes, but it will be easier in a moment," he answered, opening his wallet and taking out his driver's license. Remembering the instructions provided by Jek'yll, he took out the mask and set it to scan the photo in his license card. The mask's computer pinged, "Sample acquired. Now extrapolating...Identity ready."

Then, still clothed, Elastamun turned the mask around so that the front faced out, and placed it over his face, having to hold back a gut reaction based on what he'd just experienced. Once the mask made contact with his face, it pneumatically clung to his head and projected a full Egyptian male body over every inch of his own, an exact, flawless match to the simple ID photo.

As he turned around, Neferti gasped, stating, "Wow, that...I certainly was not expecting a form like that!"

"Why don't you try it?" Elias Amsude pointed to her mask, his voice still the same, but now conveyed with a visible, moving mouth.

Neferti had been given a data file earlier with an appropriate female persona to use, already loaded into the mask. Slightly nervous, she donned hers, and within seconds, there stood the pristine figure of Neferet Tamimi. She walked over to the deactivated crystal viewer, and gasped at her own human form. "Why, I'm...I look..."

"Beautiful?" Elias playfully guessed.

"Amazing!" She provided her own answer. Turning around, slightly giddy with this thrill, she elaborated, "When I asked to know about humans, I did not know it would mean looking like one, as well!"

"Just wait, I think it's time we paid my friend a proper visit. I can take you to his workplace very soon, in fact."

The journalist carted off the last of his possessions to Anur Khufos, then carefully stuffed the papyrus scrolls into a bag, slinging it over his shoulder. He checked the now empty room to make sure he hadn't missed anything, then nodded, using his gauntlet to tell the people on the other side to shut the portal, what with the previous one dismantled. He'd signal them to pick him up later.

Then, unlocking the front door and leaving it open, Elias mounted his motorcycle, started it, and beckoned, patting the passenger seat. "Come here, there's a seat right behind mine."

Neferet did so, though her boyfriend realized at the last minute that he'd need to buy a second helmet later. Then, tapping the remote, the ramp lowered, and he drove out of this pyramid for the final time.

The girl gazed at the terrestrial sun and blue sky, marveling at the ancient human pyramids, and enjoyed the ride towards the urban part of Giza.

Elias felt like, as the gods said, everything was going to get better from here on. The traffic on the highway was fine, the skies were clear, air wasn't too hot. It was perfect. Then it hit him that he remembered he was only here to give his girlfriend a taste of what he'd experienced for 15 years, in the best way possible: A 7-day vacation. Even if he couldn't pass through borders, this place and the rest of Egypt was enough for her.

The journalist parked his car in front of Ahmed's curio shop once again, and to his delight, his friend was alive and well behind his counter once again.

Passing an old man carrying a shopping bag coming out of the store, Elias greeted his friend again, who replied, "Elias, welcome! How was your weekend?"

"Well, firstly, I met someone," he held Neferet's shoulder, "Ahmed, I'd like you to meet Neferet, my new girlfriend."

He reached out his hand, and the girl returned it.

Ahmed greeted her, "It's a pleasure to meet you, miss. You must be a very lucky woman, Elias is a good friend of mind."

"I can imagine," she smirked, eyeing the various bits and bobs from various cultures under the glass counter.

"She found the answer to your scribe, actually," Elias smirked, knowing more about it than anyone else would know.

He reached into the bag and returned the papyrus scrolls, along with prints of the photos he took.

Elias made up an alibi, "Neferet found the scribe's casket and body, apparently whoever dug those scrolls up missed them."

"You did?!" Ahmed gasped with awe. "How?"

"Oh, it was just there," she fibbed. "Those archeologists just didn't look closely enough."

Fanning out the printed photos, Elias went on, "The evidence we gathered says that the scribe's name is Rehn-en-set, who worked for Ahmenhotep I, and wanted to overthrow him as a worshipper of Set. Apparently the pharaoh's followers caught him and executed him for that."

"Wow, sounds like a nasty fellow," the antique dealer remarked. "You'd best tell your newspaper about this! Anyone who makes a new historical discovery earns a finder's fee, after all."

"I certainly will," Elias nodded. "Heh, maybe some of the proceeds can go to you! That's why I want to sell these scrolls back to you, actually." He made sure to have the receipt next to them.

"Well, I can't give you much, so will 100 pounds do?"

"Yes, that's fine," Elias accepted as his friended handed over the money.

As the man did so, he muttered, "Funny, I had this strange dream that I was in real Ancient Egypt, or some alien planet based on it, and I was a mummy. And you said we were in a hotel."

Neferet giggled, "Dreams are funny like that."

"Well, I can't keep the paper waiting!" Elias finished as he began to leave the store.

"If you find anything else, you'll call me, won't you?" Ahmed called as his friend left.

"Yes, of course I will. Have a nice day!"

Throughout the day, the newspaper analyzed the new information he reported on Rehnenset's tomb, and within a few days, it hit the front page. They didn't actually get a finder's fee – since their discovery of the tomb was technically illegal and had no paperwork to back it up, but they did get credit at least for donating the photos and solving this mystery, resulting in a payment from his editor at 1,500 pounds, on top of his own 1,100 pounds, since Elias wasn't intending to stay on Earth much longer, having resigned from the paper on his way out.

Their week-long vacation around Earth Egypt was a thrill for Neferet, allowing her to witness the similarities to her planet and this one, just as he did. The hotels weren't too bad, movies and food were impressive, the various plants and animals piqued her interest, and in the end, they both had a great time together.

But when Friday came, Elias knew he had to make a big decision before he left for home. When the two of them parked at a small overlook on the Nile, gazing out across it, Elias took out his mobile phone and called Ahmed's number.

"Hello?"

"Hi, it's Elias. I'm sorry to say this...but I can't stay here anymore."

"Oh. Why is that?" The old man sadly asked.

"It's..." He tried to make up a plausible explanation, "I really love Neferet, but she's not from around here. Our vacation's up, and she said she has to go home, and I want to go with her."

He lowered the phone, and the woman nodded knowingly, figuring that was a good excuse.

"Don't worry, I know how you feel. If you love her and you want to make her happy, then I think you should go for it. That's what I did when my wife was still around," his friend advised.

Elias hesitated, almost crying, then asked, "Be...Before I go then, I need to tell you something."

"Yeah? What?"

"I...that dream you had?" Elias told a white lie, "It happened, sort of. When I was coming back from the tomb with Neferet, I saw this...terrorist guy attack you in the desert. Real bad. I couldn't just stand there and watch you die, so I called 911 and brought you to the hospital. You wouldn't know because you were unconscious the whole time. But it's true."

The line was silent for a moment, and Elias stared at the sunset across the west side of the Nile, descending on the distant pyramids. Then Ahmed answered, "My goodness, no wonder I found this odd stitch on my chest this morning. Well, Elias, if you saved my life, that's a reward in itself! I really don't blame you for leaving if you had to witness something like that, honestly. Heck, I've been thinking about doing the same anyway, I'm too old for this job." He cleared his throat, "But in all seriousness, don't burden yourself with the past. Even if I'm just a dealer in historical artifacts, it's not the past that matters, it's the present. That's our own history in the making, you have yours and I have mine. So if you want to make history somewhere else in the world, go for it. I won't forget you."

The former journalist sighed, then finished, "Thank you, Ahmed. I'll remember you, too. Maybe we'll meet again sometime. Heh, I might even be a father be then."

"Wouldn't that be something?" the old man chuckled. "Well, it's been nice talking to you, but it's getting late. Thanks for making my job interesting these past fifteen years."

"No, thank you for getting me interested in ancient history. That's something I definitely won't forget."

"I'm glad to hear that, my friend. Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Ahmed. Have a nice night," Elias finished as he hung up the phone.

He looked at his girlfriend, who stated in awe, "That really touched my heart! For a moment I thought you were going to tell him the truth!"

Elias answered, "I know, I really wanted to. It hurt enough having to lie to my only human friend, but the truth would have only ended in disbelief. You don't know what it's like to spend fifteen years here and not get to go home until then."

"And we all know who to blame for that," Neferet grumbled.

"I was consumed by all the things Ahmed sells, relics from human history, because I really dislike what the Middle East has turned into – that's mainly why I want to leave. But...seeing how much you like it here, I..."

"Don't worry about that, it was great while it lasted, and that's all that matters to me. Trust me, though: Anur Khufos is better for the both of us. We can start a whole new life there."

"I know." Elias opened one of the saddlebags on the bike and dumped all his possessions into it, leaving the keys in the ignition, and writing a little note that said, "To whoever finds this, this bike helped me start my life over again. Take good care of it."

Sticking the note into a small crevice in the dashboard, Elias reached for his gauntlet and activated the signaler. Immediately, the portal opened near where he stood, and the two disguised Thep Khufans stepped through, returning to their true homeworld for their new life, happily forever after.

-[THE END]-


	21. Epilogue

On Anur Khufos, priests and architects were designing murals, scrolls and statues of the incredible events that happened last night and the day before, of how the Tennysons were summoned here, the sickness, and the entire planet's efforts to stop Set. Ben would have been pleased to see himself and his watch depicted in the Egyptian-like sideways profile always seen in real Egyptian murals, not to mention a statue of his likeness alongside those of his grandfather and cousin.

Ja'Kaal hoped Neferti's vacation wouldn't take too long, but felt confident that this was a time of peace for everyone, and relaxed just the same. Raht had been discussing ideas as to what their next course of action could be, one of which could be expeditions to other planets, or perhaps special guardians for the next person for the throne. But the commander told him that nothing was set in stone yet.

The planet's government would have to go over a lot of work to choose who would be the next pharaoh, but thrown into the debate was the nearly-unanimous suggestion of rewriting the class structure so that slaves would no longer be necessary for labor, and servants would be treated more fairly. If massive monuments like pyramids were to be built, then construction machines would be used instead of manual labor.

Many people found better lives for themselves as well. Those two gossipy servants were already given promotions ahead of time, allowed to choose new careers for themselves. Valerian joined the Rigil clan alongside Ilais, and Rel'Hathor found a well-paying job at a local spa in Mos Isis. Even Undyyne joined the planet's military regime, helping Captain Drexel train his soldiers.

Whoever would assume the throne next and be linked to the gods' telepathic presence, it was certain that this new class system would take effect on that day.

Later that night, Set had to finish what his father had done in his place: Fighting Apophis. Upon being dumped into the snake's pocket of space-time, Set just dropped to his knees and screamed in agony, realizing this that he couldn't leave it.

"Hello, my crazy nemesis," the snake laughed, coiling himself around the dwarfed chaos god. "I've missed you, where have you been all this time? Last I recall, your father and his boring gods were the ones to evade me, by sheer luck!"

"I have always fought you off, what are you talking about?!"

"Not always – you have popped in and out of existence and only barely deterred me. Distracted, I would say," the snake laughed. "Tell me, what has kept you? I am DYING to know!"

"A pitiful human mortal wanted to join me, and...I had fun with it."

"Well, now your fun is over! Shall we begin our ritual? Or would you rather finally let me go so that I can-"

"Never!" Set screamed as he conjured his sword and swiped at Apophis, "I have been scorned and mocked enough already in the mortal realm! No one there seems to care about MY worth, I do not need your input on top of that!"

"I AM you, weakling! Do not deny it for a moment!" Apophis snarled. "No matter how many times you may defeat me, or how you are blind to my gaze, chaos penetrates all and you know it! You are just a bumbling child who cannot possibly understand what it means to be loved!"

"Nor do you, abomination!"

Horus just groaned from Ra's boat, thinking, "Get on with it, brother!"

So the fight continued into the evening, while both planets slept in the mortal realm.

On early Monday morning on Earth, a portal in Rehnenset's tomb opened, through which came Elastamun and his new girlfriend, towing the scribe's dead body and coffin, laying it to rest in the pit where it was meant to be. Remembering those scrolls still at his underground house, tablets and other items here bolstered the dead man's claims along with them.

As Elastamun took pictures of everything with a digital camera, Neferti giggled, "They will never know the truth, will they?"

"No, but that is for the better. The truth would be so complicated it would be even harder for humans to understand."

Later, back in Giza, Elastamun started dismantling his home under the satellite pyramid of Khafre, knowing someone was going to find it sooner or later. Taking down all his murals, statues and other accoutrements and shoving them through the portal on a hover cart, and boxing up his terrestrial belongings, Elastamun was effectively moving everything out of this space to a house he rented in Mos Isis. Two-thirds through the process, he pulled on his human clothes, checking its pockets for items.

"You have to wear that to blend in with humans?" Neferti asked, on the verge of giggling.

"Yes, but it will be easier in a moment," he answered, opening his wallet and taking out his driver's license. Remembering the instructions provided by Jek'yll, he took out the mask and set it to scan the photo in his license card. The mask's computer pinged, "Sample acquired. Now extrapolating...Identity ready."

Then, still clothed, Elastamun turned the mask around so that the front faced out, and placed it over his face, having to hold back a gut reaction based on what he'd just experienced. Once the mask made contact with his face, it pneumatically clung to his head and projected a full Egyptian male body over every inch of his own, an exact, flawless match to the simple ID photo.

As he turned around, Neferti gasped, stating, "Wow, that...I certainly was not expecting a form like that!"

"Why don't you try it?" Elias Amsude pointed to her mask, his voice still the same, but now conveyed with a visible, moving mouth.

Neferti had been given a data file earlier with an appropriate female persona to use, already loaded into the mask. Slightly nervous, she donned hers, and within seconds, there stood the pristine figure of Neferet Tamimi. She walked over to the deactivated crystal viewer, and gasped at her own human form. "Why, I'm...I look..."

"Beautiful?" Elias playfully guessed.

"Amazing!" She provided her own answer. Turning around, slightly giddy with this thrill, she elaborated, "When I asked to know about humans, I did not know it would mean looking like one, as well!"

"Just wait, I think it's time we paid my friend a proper visit. I can take you to his workplace very soon, in fact."

The journalist carted off the last of his possessions to Anur Khufos, then carefully stuffed the papyrus scrolls into a bag, slinging it over his shoulder. He checked the now empty room to make sure he hadn't missed anything, then nodded, using his gauntlet to tell the people on the other side to shut the portal, what with the previous one dismantled. He'd signal them to pick him up later.

Then, unlocking the front door and leaving it open, Elias mounted his motorcycle, started it, and beckoned, patting the passenger seat. "Come here, there's a seat right behind mine."

Neferet did so, though her boyfriend realized at the last minute that he'd need to buy a second helmet later. Then, tapping the remote, the ramp lowered, and he drove out of this pyramid for the final time.

The girl gazed at the terrestrial sun and blue sky, marveling at the ancient human pyramids, and enjoyed the ride towards the urban part of Giza.

Elias felt like, as the gods said, everything was going to get better from here on. The traffic on the highway was fine, the skies were clear, air wasn't too hot. It was perfect. Then it hit him that he remembered he was only here to give his girlfriend a taste of what he'd experienced for 15 years, in the best way possible: A 7-day vacation. Even if he couldn't pass through borders, this place and the rest of Egypt was enough for her.

The journalist parked his car in front of Ahmed's curio shop once again, and to his delight, his friend was alive and well behind his counter once again.

Passing an old man carrying a shopping bag coming out of the store, Elias greeted his friend again, who replied, "Elias, welcome! How was your weekend?"

"Well, firstly, I met someone," he held Neferet's shoulder, "Ahmed, I'd like you to meet Neferet, my new girlfriend."

He reached out his hand, and the girl returned it.

Ahmed greeted her, "It's a pleasure to meet you, miss. You must be a very lucky woman, Elias is a good friend of mind."

"I can imagine," she smirked, eyeing the various bits and bobs from various cultures under the glass counter.

"She found the answer to your scribe, actually," Elias smirked, knowing more about it than anyone else would know.

He reached into the bag and returned the papyrus scrolls, along with prints of the photos he took.

Elias made up an alibi, "Neferet found the scribe's casket and body, apparently whoever dug those scrolls up missed them."

"You did?!" Ahmed gasped with awe. "How?"

"Oh, it was just there," she fibbed. "Those archeologists just didn't look closely enough."

Fanning out the printed photos, Elias went on, "The evidence we gathered says that the scribe's name is Rehn-en-set, who worked for Ahmenhotep I, and wanted to overthrow him as a worshipper of Set. Apparently the pharaoh's followers caught him and executed him for that."

"Wow, sounds like a nasty fellow," the antique dealer remarked. "You'd best tell your newspaper about this! Anyone who makes a new historical discovery earns a finder's fee, after all."

"I certainly will," Elias nodded. "Heh, maybe some of the proceeds can go to you! That's why I want to sell these scrolls back to you, actually." He made sure to have the receipt next to them.

"Well, I can't give you much, so will 100 pounds do?"

"Yes, that's fine," Elias accepted as his friended handed over the money.

As the man did so, he muttered, "Funny, I had this strange dream that I was in real Ancient Egypt, or some alien planet based on it, and I was a mummy. And you said we were in a hotel."

Neferet giggled, "Dreams are funny like that."

"Well, I can't keep the paper waiting!" Elias finished as he began to leave the store.

"If you find anything else, you'll call me, won't you?" Ahmed called as his friend left.

"Yes, of course I will. Have a nice day!"

Throughout the day, the newspaper analyzed the new information he reported on Rehnenset's tomb, and within a few days, it hit the front page. They didn't actually get a finder's fee – since their discovery of the tomb was technically illegal and had no paperwork to back it up, but they did get credit at least for donating the photos and solving this mystery, resulting in a payment from his editor at 1,500 pounds, on top of his own 1,100 pounds, since Elias wasn't intending to stay on Earth much longer, having resigned from the paper on his way out.

Their week-long vacation around Earth Egypt was a thrill for Neferet, allowing her to witness the similarities to her planet and this one, just as he did. The hotels weren't too bad, movies and food were impressive, the various plants and animals piqued her interest, and in the end, they both had a great time together.

But when Friday came, Elias knew he had to make a big decision before he left for home. When the two of them parked at a small overlook on the Nile, gazing out across it, Elias took out his mobile phone and called Ahmed's number.

"Hello?"

"Hi, it's Elias. I'm sorry to say this...but I can't stay here anymore."

"Oh. Why is that?" The old man sadly asked.

"It's..." He tried to make up a plausible explanation, "I really love Neferet, but she's not from around here. Our vacation's up, and she said she has to go home, and I want to go with her."

He lowered the phone, and the woman nodded knowingly, figuring that was a good excuse.

"Don't worry, I know how you feel. If you love her and you want to make her happy, then I think you should go for it. That's what I did when my wife was still around," his friend advised.

Elias hesitated, almost crying, then asked, "Be...Before I go then, I need to tell you something."

"Yeah? What?"

"I...that dream you had?" Elias told a white lie, "It happened, sort of. When I was coming back from the tomb with Neferet, I saw this...terrorist guy attack you in the desert. Real bad. I couldn't just stand there and watch you die, so I called 911 and brought you to the hospital. You wouldn't know because you were unconscious the whole time. But it's true."

The line was silent for a moment, and Elias stared at the sunset across the west side of the Nile, descending on the distant pyramids. Then Ahmed answered, "My goodness, no wonder I found this odd stitch on my chest this morning. Well, Elias, if you saved my life, that's a reward in itself! I really don't blame you for leaving if you had to witness something like that, honestly. Heck, I've been thinking about doing the same anyway, I'm too old for this job." He cleared his throat, "But in all seriousness, don't burden yourself with the past. Even if I'm just a dealer in historical artifacts, it's not the past that matters, it's the present. That's our own history in the making, you have yours and I have mine. So if you want to make history somewhere else in the world, go for it. I won't forget you."

The former journalist sighed, then finished, "Thank you, Ahmed. I'll remember you, too. Maybe we'll meet again sometime. Heh, I might even be a father be then."

"Wouldn't that be something?" the old man chuckled. "Well, it's been nice talking to you, but it's getting late. Thanks for making my job interesting these past fifteen years."

"No, thank you for getting me interested in ancient history. That's something I definitely won't forget."

"I'm glad to hear that, my friend. Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Ahmed. Have a nice night," Elias finished as he hung up the phone.

He looked at his girlfriend, who stated in awe, "That really touched my heart! For a moment I thought you were going to tell him the truth!"

Elias answered, "I know, I really wanted to. It hurt enough having to lie to my only human friend, but the truth would have only ended in disbelief. You don't know what it's like to spend fifteen years here and not get to go home until then."

"And we all know who to blame for that," Neferet grumbled.

"I was consumed by all the things Ahmed sells, relics from human history, because I really dislike what the Middle East has turned into – that's mainly why I want to leave. But...seeing how much you like it here, I..."

"Don't worry about that, it was great while it lasted, and that's all that matters to me. Trust me, though: Anur Khufos is better for the both of us. We can start a whole new life there."

"I know." Elias opened one of the saddlebags on the bike and dumped all his possessions into it, leaving the keys in the ignition, and writing a little note that said, "To whoever finds this, this bike helped me start my life over again. Take good care of it."

Sticking the note into a small crevice in the dashboard, Elias reached for his gauntlet and activated the signaler. Immediately, the portal opened near where he stood, and the two disguised Thep Khufans stepped through, returning to their true homeworld for their new life, happily forever after.

-[THE END]-


End file.
